Private school visit

[mammanbebe]

Hi mums..I am new to MN.My DS has just started reception in a local state school and i was planning to consider private options at the end of year 1 or 2. I went to visit a private school today and was surprised to see the kids doing addition in reception!! Its still early days and i thought reception is all about learning through play? Do all private schools start formal learning right from day 1 in reception?
Would like to know what the real difference is between a good state school and a good private school in terms of academics..TIA.

Sorry - many x-postings there.
I type sloooow.

pagwatch again I could have written your post (I type quickly but went off to have lunch)

Helenagrace I haven't done any of those things.

It remains the case that the educational achievements you are claiming for your DC's private school are nothing special. I'm glad I'm not paying out good money for performance that is being replicated and surpassed in state primaries.

Oh, and helen I am taking notes and will in future not take criticism from those you mention!

Back to you OP, my dd does a fair bit of work, including simple addition, in the mornings and spends the afternoons playing and doing sport. It seems to suit her fine so far (well, week three of term).

Seeker
There is a big difference in my view in objecting to private schools as a concept and objecting to the people who send their children to private schools.

You are happy to assume that I send my kids to private schools because I don't want them to meet with "state school kids" despite the fact that most of my sons' friends are those very state school kids (DH is an immigrant as are many of his friends, it is only because I am a big earner that we can choose to send our kids to private schools). We don't all live in a privileged little bubble, if we did then maybe we would live next to a really good state school .

However, you also seem to assume that many state school parents don't think about where their children go to school and wander sheep like to whichever school happens to be nearest. That is not my experience all my family and friends have thought hard about which schools to send their children and where possible have done what they can to exercise as much choice as possible. The problem they face is that in the part of London where we live the choices are between: sort of ok (but below the national and borough average) and not very good at all at primary level. At secondary level between: the school where the police are outside at home time or the one where a pupil got stabbed in his lunch hour earlier this year.

Can I just stress that my comments were not aimed at seeker although they were in response to her post iyswim

I am not aiming at you seeker. Just getting a bit pissed off at the tone from both 'sides' on some of these threads.

seeker, I did read your post. I chose to only challenge one part of it, maybe, but the rest is equally ridiculous.

the vast majority of parents do not have time to choose a school for their children? I think not.

the vast majority do not have the means to choose a school? if you are talking about the choice between state and private, then yes, you are right, not everyone has that level of income. but that is not the only choice to be made (and it is perfectly possible to go to a private school from a 'sink' council estate. I did it myself), and so for the vast majority of school choices, 'means' does not come into it.

the vast majority do not have the knowledge to choose? I would take issue with the vast majority, tbh. yes, there are some parents (probably a sizeable minority) who do not have the knowledge or skills to make an informed choice about schools, but the vast majority? no.

I am unsure as to what you mean by the vast majority of parents not having the 'leisure' to choose a school, so cannot address that point.

I think pagwatch has, once again, hit the nail on the head when she says that those who sneer at other people's choices do so because they think they are better.

I love threads like this one. Great for seeing a lot of differing viewpoints.

Being a bit of a devil's advocate, I was thinking, if parents (or a parent) is in a job well-paid enough to be able to afford school fees, then they are probably intelligent enough to have the good job, and so their children are unlikely to be stupid by simple genetics. So even the 'non-selective' private schools probably indirectly select for intelligence.

Also what about those which have the biggest entry at nursery level? The learning by play then happens in this year, so when the children get to reception they move to more formal learning?

To try to find the best state school you can that you can get your child into in your area, but to stop short of opting out of state education altogether is not the same thing as fully exercising all your choices, is it? Is the state sector better served by all those who can afford to, opting out of it???? Should you seek the very best that your can afford for your children's education, or is good enough, good enough?

Numbers-wise, I'd have said 24 for a good prep school is fairly normal. I can't see a class size of less than ten in Reception unless the school isn't terribly good, or there is a reason people aren't sending their children there. Of course, it tends to get a little smaller as you move up, as (apart from Year 3) you're likely to have more leaving than coming in in my experience.

I remember learning fractions at about Christmas time in Year One with a chocolate orange...

Tiny class sizes were a big decider in sending my DCs to a private prep school. And I have to disagree that any school with such tiny classes must be failing.

The one I sent mine to chose to spend the money on teachers rather than swanky facilities.

My children went here

The building is rented and used by other groups not in school time, keeping costs down.

Mammanbebe- the independent schools in our area do follow NC to some extent, but they do it a year ahead, so children in Reception class would be following Y1 curriculum IYSWIM. They expect children to start the school in the Nursery to accommodate this.

I wouldn't be happy paying for 24 in a class though, state schools have only 6 more.

Agree with PagW. We sent DS to local state primary & then exercised our choice to move him to the next nearest when we weren't happy. We all make choices, even if the choice is I can't be bothered to find out what is out there.

Sorry lambethlil, I worded that completely wrong. If there was only an intake of 10 I'd be surprised a) that not more people wanted to go if it was a good school and b) they'd be making any money.

Obviously if the year was split it would make complete sense!

Just in my experience, class sizes were very definitely stopped at 24, it would never go higher (I remember they once put a girl in the year above for a term as they knew a space was coming up at Christmas), but obviously there were sometimes fewer. However my school didn't have the facilities to split years into more than one class.

No offence taken!

It just surprises me when private preps choose to spend their income- the money parents pay to send their DCs to the school- on the buildings not the staff.

I wouldn't have paid for classes of 24.

It's not always not being bothered that causes some people to cut themselves off from all the options open to them, though, munstersmum. And it's a false argument to say that you either have to accept all the choices available as equally valid or cut yourself off from making any active choice whatsoever if you don't want to be a hypocrite.

or not so much a false argument as just plain wrong...

As a teacher, can I just say that seeker is nearer the truth than some of you would like to admit. I have taught thousands of kids over the years and there is as resonably sized minority of parents who are not engaged with school in any way...and at worse, some are actively hostile to it.

I can quite see that the likelihood of meeting such parents does rather depend on the area you live and your social class, but it is there and it is the reason why the level of parental education is used as a marker for success later on in school rather than the child's own IQ.

I haven't met such parents at my children's school, but I've met their children. It's a bit hard to meet unengaged parents at school, I find.

at rabbitstew...I only meet them when they absolutely have to come in...

My son, as it happened, would have been seen doing rows of sums in reception at his - very very bog standard village state - school. It would not have been small numbers either - mental addition and subtraction of 3 digit numbers and of negative numbers was more his thing. Very BIG though - on a chalkboard in 2 inch high numerals most probably, as his fine motor skills took a while to catch up with his mental abilities.

Some of his classmates would have been playing with cars at the same time. It's called differentiation, it moves all children on from where they are and it is found in every state school worth its salt. It is the utterly undifferentiated, boring, worksheet / workbook, one-size-fits-all nature of the task seen by the OP at a prep school that would have horrified me. Where is the differentiation, the nudging every child forward all the time starting from there they are, the addressing everything from lots of different angles to ensure that everyone gets to show what they know even if their brain runs ahead of their fingers? Where was the bright spark doing 2 and 3 digit numbers, the child who likes working with concrete objects working with blocks or counters and then having his work photographed to record and show his understanding? Where is the genuine investigation, the enjoyment, the enthusiasm?

Too often on MN fee paying parents are lumped together as some sort of generic entity. People pay for all sorts of reasons. Morebeta pays for academic rigour much earlier. We pay for the day to day experience and the avoidance of the highly pressured, very high achieving state school which was our catchment school. Others pay for wraparound care or smaller classes.

I don't mind people having a moral objection to private education at all. It's a perfectly valid stance. I do object to the assumption that a) It's done to avoid 'the masses' and b) That all independent schools are like Eton.

Mammanbebe - welcome to Mumsnet, it can sometimes get a bit heated (most often when you notice a few people starting to digress and have a heated debate while veering off the topic!) but for the most part you will find a wide range of opinion, and sometimes, good advice, and occasionally even the odd free bit of professional advice.

I too went through that round of looking around state and private schools very recently, and I have to say it varies- even some state schools are starting adding and subtracting, and even expecting pupils in Reception to be able to write their own name correctly. Regardless of whether it is "Jo" or "Alexandra"! That said, a lot of older kids (those aged 5 rather than 4, maybe) actually welcome the challenge. Among private schools, it also varies greatly, between those that mostly play to those who are doing more formal lessons.....again, the more challenging lessons may be due to the fact that they get a lot of older children who welcome it, or children who have already been through their own nursery and did lots of play and nursery rhymes there for a whole year already.

I think you need to visit the school/s you intend your child to go to and go for the one that you feel the most confident about. As for state vs private snobbery - in my area there is no choice: it's so oversubscribed that many families are often forced to choose private school or end up with no school or one that requires a 40 minute commute each way. You really have to pick what you feel is most suited to your child.

Don't forget that at Reception age, if your child has not turned 5 yet, you are entitled to use EYFE to subsidise part of your costs of private school. Most schools, unless we're talking about the very famous and exclusive ones that former princes, princesses and titled people went to (I think people know which I mean!) will accept EYFE and apply for it on your behalf, although there is no law that they must. The subsidy does vary fro school to school, so do ask for a quote from the Bursar when you visit - they can usually give you last year/this year's figures.

I would bloody love to send DS to private school so only judge you fee payers because I am jealous . Actually I think bloody well done for being successful enough to be able to choose that for your DC, unless your parents are paying then it is just seething jealousy! I have friends who are vehemently opposed to private education but pay ££££££££££ a month on a mortgage on a tiny house so there children can go to an amazing state school- no different IMHO