Everyone who lives near me and can afford it seems to be sending their kids to private schools…

[sanssucre]

That's it really, I guess I've just been really surprised that none of them has even considered the local primary schools. DD will start school next year and I'd just always assumed she would go to one of the decent primary schools nearby (there are several and I'm confident we'll get into one).

Thing is, we could actually afford to go private (it would mean some sacrifices but it's do-able), we've just always wanted her to have local friends, go to a nearby school, mix with a wide variety of people etc so I haven't explored the independent option at all. However, in all honesty, the fact that so many people in a similar financial situation to ours haven't even bothered to look round the state primaries is making me wonder if I'm being hopelessly optimistic. But seriously, is it really worth spending thousands of pounds a term to teach a 4/5/6-year-old? I'm not being sarcastic or judgy, it's a genuine question, I just honestly want to know what can be so terrible about a reasonable state primary school that so many people wouldn't even give it a second look.

I appreciate that my post might raise a few heckles. I know we're very fortunate to be able to afford private education if that is the way we choose to go. I also understand that this is a very contentious/emotive issue but I'd be really grateful for some honest opinions.

magdalene, I don't know what they do higher up in the school (dd1 in Y2) but in KS1 they sometimes have single subject history and geography lessons, and then sometimes combine creatively. As others have said, it depends on the context and the specific lesson - seems to work well.

Re sharing teaching expertise, I think all our teachers would agree - we do share areas of excellence with the other state schools, am not sure the private schools always want to get involved though. However, we do have a deputy head from the local private boys (top) school as one of our governors, and he is on our Curriculum committee and very helpful. His school runs extra maths tuition which some of our Y5 pupils attend (as do other G&T state students in the borough). There have been staff attending each others' inset days, too, in order to learn from each other. So yes, some fruitful exchange. But that is only one independent school - the other one nearby seems happy to bake cookies for the school-linked community cafe, but we have no academic interchange whatsoever.

Chandon - why on earth doesn't the school exclude them? That sounds terrible for your children - try and get them out asap if you can. Safety is the priority here.

Rabbitstew - I think single subjects and more in depth learning at 8,9 and 10 would be beneficial as it prepares them for more rigorous work in secondary school. Do subjects have to automatically appear relevant to every day life? What if they don't? Do we just omit them in case children find it too difficult or get bored? If you have high calibre teachers then they can bring their subject alive.

teacherwith2kids - I am not totally convinced that the cross curricular approach gives children that in depth understanding but only time will tell. Is this a recent development in education? And do all schools have to follow it? I think setting children from 8 or 9 would be advantageous as that's when the differences are probably more acute. However, if you feel it works with differentiated activities who am I to judge?

Well, I never needed to see the relevance of what I was learning, I was just naturally academic and lapped anything and everything up. However, I really didn't need a more rigorous approach at primary level - the excitement was in getting that at secondary school (and then going on to be more rigorous still reading law at Oxford).

My db, who was at least as bright, if not more bright, than me, did need to understand the relevance of what he was learning - otherwise he really didn't see why he should have his time wasted learning what he was told to learn, rather than what interested him. A lot of exceptionally bright, creative people are turned off by subjects taught in isolation without any explanation as to why the information being imparted is going to be of the remotest relevance, interest or use to them in future years, except to the extent that it will help them pass exams. So I still don't think cross curricular learning is dumbing down - it's showing more respect to people intelligent enough to ask what they're doing at school in the first place.

In our case, the kids do not get excluded because the head teacher says these particular kids would be worse off at home than at school... , which I understand. But I feel the balance is a bit wrong as kids actually get hurt.

When my DS got home with a massive black eye (he had not been in a fight, but had something thrown in his face by one of these kids and he happened to be in the "wrong place", ie sitting at his table ) we were asked by the head to tell our DS to stay away from this particular boy, but there is nowhere to "get away" when you are sitting down doing your work is there? My other DS was praised for just picking up his work and doing it on the floor in the corridor when things got hairy, but I wish they didn't have to cope with this at all.

So yes, we are making the bog move from State to private, as as result of years of disruption both my DC are a bout a year behind where they should be, and I hope a smaller class and better managing of difficult kids will help

Back to the OP, so for me, personally, it is not about snobbism, but about escape really, and repairing the damage (that is why I choose private and not another primary, as they need some help to recover from this mess). I feel that "culturally" a normal primary is more our scene, but I'll brave the bling crowd!

"big move", not "bog move"

weird typo...

Chandon

I subscribe to inclusion, and also understand some kids are worse off at home, but I do think in this case they have things back to front. When behaviour kicks off, IMO, the kicking-off child is the one who needs to leave the classroom. Strategies need to be found that give that child what he/she needs without compromising the others - otherwise the message is all wrong, for everyone involved. Very sad, and I wish you luck with the move.

thanks Elibean, it is a bit sad, as I loved that school. I am not the only one moving, it's one of those bad/sad phases even nice schools can go through. I actually cried when we made the decision, but now I am positive.

Onwards and upwards and all that

Well, lovely understanding attitude and hats off to you - may the move pay off

What a shame the school don't have better advice from someone about how to handle it - here's hoping, for their sake.

Sounds really sad, Chandon. Our state schools have always been very firm in clamping down on bullying. If it was a case of pupils not being able to stay safely at home they would contact SS and/or Education Welfare. Sounds like a useless headteacher.

Sorry to hear about all you and your DC have been through, Chandon. Best of luck with your move

rabbitstew - in the 1992 report on primary school teaching methods it was stated 'There is a clear evidence that much topic work has led to fragmentation and superficial learning'. The data speaks for itself: 20% of children leave primary school unable to read and write well enough to cope with the demands of secondary education. Cross curricular teaching and personalisation will do nothing to solve this. Isn't it difficult for children to make links between subjects if they don't have a real understanding of the facts they are meant to be linking to begin with. Not to mention all the pseudo subjects taught at primary level now. After all, cultural diversity, sustainable development and understanding health and well being are more important than History or Science. The state sector teaches skills and issues rather than knowledge. Perhaps this is why parents opt for the private sector?

I also feel that schools are there to teach knowledge which wouldn't be encountered anywhere else. The more alien and challenging the knowledge, the more enriching the curriculum. Not everything in this world is automatically relevant to our children.

Bet I get lots of progressives on here now!

Magdelene,

1992, in teaching terms, is such a long time ago as not to be relevant to what is happening in schools today.

As with all things in school, there are 'fashions' in these things. As a school child in the 1970s, I hit 'child centred learning' and 'topics' in full force. The National Curriculum arose in reaction to that, and the current creative curriculum approach has responded to the worst excesses of the 'compartmentalised' learning that created. The 'lunatic fringes' of each approach are not goiod - the truth is, as in all these things, somewhat more nuanced.

I feel that cross-curricular learning is the BEST way to introduce knowledge that cannot be enountered elsewhere. If I had taught Hinduism in isolation, to my very rural, very white class, it would just have been dismissed as 'alien'. However, it was linked to a whole topic (which took a whole term, so covered all aspects in depth) on India, and in that context it was relevant to the kids and they absorbed it like sponges. I think of it as being like Velcro - the more 'hooks' you create for a child to link new knowledge onto old, the more likely is the child is to genuinely learn and absorb that knowledge. So the children already knoew about India, about its geography, its people, typical lives of the rich and poor - then we worked on Indian Myths in Literacy in tandem with learning about Hinduism in RE. Even now, 2 terms on, their recall is fantastic, and at the time the depth of understanding, the type of questions they asked, the appreciation of an unknown culture was far in advance of what I would have expected from 7 year olds.

I really do question the source of your information when you state that learning in state schools is all about skills. This week in science I will teach my class about magnets - and yes, they will experience magnetic force and learn the skills of carrying out a fair test experiment, but they will also learn about magnets. In RE, they will learn about the Bible and its use in Christian worship - and use the skills of textual analysis to study how Psalms become hymns. In Maths, they will analyse data using different types of graphs to answer questions they have come up with - yes, a skill, but one which needs knowledge to underpin it. And in Literacy they will learn about how an adventure story is structured and begin their own extended writing. I could go on - but is this really 'content free and all about skills'?

On the other hand, I use the SKILLS I learned through my education many times every day. I use the specific knowledge very rarely, and would do so even more rarely if I wasn't a teacher. When did you last use a particular piece of knowledge you learned at school in your daily work? Or do you instead use the skills - of research, of adding money, of structuring a text, of comprehending the meaning of a text, of deciphering something in an unknown langiage, of making a fair test or comparison, of weighing evidence?

The choice may be nothing to do with the actual teaching at the individual schools. Ds is at private school because there is no wraparound care at our local state school. Out of all my friends with dcs at that school I don't k ow anyone who works full time. At ds's school the number of part time or non working mums in our year is in the minority. I couldn't work full time and send Ds to state school without then getting a CM to drop off and collect and then face all the negotiation and compromise that entails (I've been there). Instead Ds can do before and after school activities without wondering who will take or collect him. The small class sizes and resources are a bonus but not the reason for my choice.

magdalene - your information clearly is very out of date... I wouldn't quote anything from nearly 20 years ago to make a point about education, because education gets fiddled with too often for what happened 20 years ago to be particularly relevant to today.

To be honest, I'm not quite clear what you want out of your children's primary education - a mini version of secondary education, so that they can then repeat their work, but more in-depth, at secondary level? Wouldn't that risk getting a bit boring after 13 years? And it's news to me that health and cultural diversity are actually MORE important at my children's school than history and science.

Basically, when it comes down to it, my children are not going to leave school with inadequate reading and writing skills to cope with secondary school. Nor will they have a poor grasp of relevant facts. I seriously doubt 20% of the children at their school are being so badly taught that they will leave with the severely inadequate skills to which you refer - in other words, you are quoting pretty meaningless percentages when it comes to individual schools, and all the original poster asked was why some parents never even bother to look around their local state schools (ie seem to believe that the statistics, and the information about cultural diversity and staying healthy being more important than science and history, that you have got from somewhere - not sure where - apply to all state schools).

Yes, of course you can choose a private prep school that will assume your children are already healthy and don't need to be taught how to stay that way, and will teach your children Latin, french, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, art, etc with specialist teachers, each subject clearly delineated, but I'm quite confident that my children don't need that approach at primary school age to enable them to make proper links between ideas and to understand facts (they aren't so stupid they need everything that clearly labelled for them before they can comprehend its relevance or find it interesting). If you think the 20% of children who leave school without adequate reading and writing skills would benefit from that approach, I would be very interested to see if that really is the case in practice. If you aren't actually interested in the bottom 20% but are actually thinking that the more traditional approach is better for brighter children, then to be honest, I don't think that approach makes a big enough difference to my family to make it worth my while to pay for it - I got into Oxford via a state education and didn't feel I was let down by my education or had to work unusually hard to achieve anything, or missed out on anything important, and I wasn't ground down by the banality of it all or put off academic work, or given a poor work ethic as a result of it. And this isn't on the basis of having no experience of private education, either, as my older siblings were privately educated to the ages of 11 or 14 and their general knowledge and ability to write or speak foreign languages does not appear to be superior to mine. Therefore, whilst I think a good private education can provide bells and whistles that a state education cannot (of course the extra money provides extra facilities), I don't think the bells and whistles are necessary, just as I don't think I have to drive a Ferrari to get from A to B.

ps if I looked round the available state options in my area and hated them all, I would pay for my children to avoid them. I wouldn't assume they would be dire before I'd looked at them, though.

So, I guess you could say, I might unwillingly end up with a Ferrari one day! Or an inadequate and expensive gas guzzler that is nevertheless better than the bicycle with the wheels missing.

But at the moment, I'm quite happy with my children's state school - in car terms, it's fuel efficient, with a good reputation for reliability....

And I'm clearly ready for bed.

Your state education was different to what it is now. I actually do care about the children who rely on the school for education and leave year 6 without a level 4 in English and Maths. If this cross curricular approach does that, then I'm proved wrong. You need to look at the data and I am afraid it is depressing. Of course your children are not going to leave school without the necessary reading and writing skills, but they have you as a parent to help them. What about the children who don't have that advantage? What about them?

The reasons some people don't look at state schools are complex; I was just making the point that perhaps some parents are not convinced by new educational practices in the state sector. I usually find the common misconception on this site that many parents choose the private sector to avoid their kids mixing with poor children.

No, I don't want my children to have a mini style secondary education. And I never implied your children were so stupid either! It seems you've got yourself a little flustered. Just a difference of opinion, that's all.

teacherwithtwokids - what about professions where you have to use your knowledge daily? Doctors for example? I have nothing against skills - I just think it's gone too much the other way. KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS for a 21st Century curriculum. Hopefully Michael Gove can shake things up a bit

rabbitstew - so why is it so few children from the state sector get into Oxford now? Obviously the decline in standards in the state sector has to be a reason.

By the way what are all these comments about cars? Not interested in them - don't have one!

I think rabbitstew you are upset by my comments so I think I better wrap it up here. I really don't mean to offend anybody and I have nothing against state education per se (my child is in the state sector and I was state educated) but I doubt these new teaching practices because it comes from the government not experienced teachers. Give teachers and Heads to power to run their own schools and their own curriculum. The government shouldn't use schools to support their ideologies. There, I'm done!
And thanks for your comments teacherwith2kids - you've given me food for thought

MAGDALENE, plenty of children will manege just fine to get into Oxford and Cambridge, just look at latest results GCSE and A levels from some of the top preforming state schools in the country, attainments are rising all the time, you can not generalise like that, there are some very able children being exclusively educated in the state schools.

magdalene - I don't think the proportion of state educated children getting into Oxford has gone down over the years, it just hasn't gone up fast enough. Also, I'm not talking about state secondary education, I'm talking only about primary education. And my primary state education was a lot less structured than that of my children - a lot more in line with the 1992 report you quoted (although over and done with a little bit earlier in time than 1992!!!!!). My children appear to be learning more facts and concrete knowledge than I was taught at primary level. And no, I wasn't getting flustered, just amusing myself with the thought of cars when I should have been going to bed... As for children who don't come from a background such as my own, I cannot with any wisdom say whether a more traditional approach or a cross curricular approach is better for them, as I have no direct personal experience. I do know that children from all sorts of backgrounds do well at my children's school, though, and if I didn't think the school was doing a good job of educating all its children, I wouldn't like the school very much.

ps I'm not saying you're wrong to want subjects separated out and taught discretely, I can see the benefits, I just wanted to make the point that I don't think the cause of all the problems in state education is with the creative curriculum and cross curricular teaching, as it can work fantastically in some schools. Maybe traditional teaching is easier and therefore can be done badly with less ill effect, though?????

I think that's a very fair point rabbit.

For cross curriculum teaching to work well it has to be very well thought through, otherwise one ends up not covering the ground.
Also, it does not lend itself well to setting...so you are going to need teachers who can do a hell of a lot of juggling.

That is a much bigger ask than teaching subjects discretely in differentiated groups.