'Why I send my child to a private school' Guardian piece...

[PollyParanoia]

Is there no thread on it? Surely there must be.
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/23/why-send-child-to-private-school here
It's just so badly written with lots of fatuous unsupported statements. She's been so suckered by that clever thing that private nurseries do to encourage parents to sign up until 11. Our local one makes the nursery children buy and wear the uniform in the pre-reception year. Especially if the uniform has an expensive boater as hers does (I always notice that the most prestigious schools around us have the least pretentious uniform).
And as for 'Katy's exceeding national expectations', well, a good section of children in a state school will do the same, doh, as you'd know if you really were an educational expert.
And that bit about how lots of children would thrive in a non-academic environment/technical school. But not her child of course.
Oh and she lives in Kent so I think we know the answer to her point about her going private if she's not happy with the secondary school provision.

rabbitstew lots of big name schools are doing exactly that- becoming means blind and offering places to all he pass the entrance test.

lambethlil - and are they giving full details to poor students on the syllabus they have to have studied and the level they need to have got to in order to be able to pass the exams? And telling them how they can access what they need in order to be able to get to that stage? Or is this like allowing people the vote if they can prove they are literate, but making sure that nobody teaches them how to read?

Honestly- I don't know. I'm sure there is some resistance from parents as well. But the school consortium I'm thinking about puts a lot of adverts on the Tube and London papers.

Public schools cannot become totally means blind, because they are far too expensive to run if nobody at all pays one hell of a lot more for them than the taxpayer does per pupil for state schools. I should imagine public schools are actually fascinated by parents' means.

The wife of a now retired Labour MP once wrote an article in a newspaper confessing that she felt she had damaged her childrens' education by standing on her political principles and sending them to the local constituency Comprehensive school in the 1970s rather than work the system to get them into a better school outside her husband's constituency.

I thought that quite honest.

If all middle class families and those with particularly bright children send their children to private school in an area then obviously the results of the local state school will be lower as the intake is skewed and not comprehensive.

I'm actually appalled that she worked as a teacher in a state school and wrote this self serving drivel.

Indeed Handbag, the journalist is in Kent which has a high number of schools failing to reach floor targets - schools in which the top streams are effectively absent but are berated for not getting as good results as the grammars.
It's as if some hospitals could choose their patients and only picked those that were healthy and other hospitals were left with all the elderly and sick. And then the first lot of hospitals crowed about how much better they must be because so many less people died in their care.

Good analogy polly

State schools get roughly half the funding per child that private do and more often than not have more pupils with additional needs and a wider range of abilities. I'd like to see state schools funded at the same level as private for an extended period of time before I think anyone can make a definite judgement.

I feel sorry for families in London who can't get their kids into a school, paying private isn't a long term solution though, although individual families can't do much about that when faced with a five year old and no school place for them.

I think those of us out in the sticks, with our DCs at lovely comps, must snigger happily to ourselves sometimes, because many of the problems that are talked about to do with schools don't affect us at all.

The issue is that (like MN to be fair) the media is very London-centric and bashes comps when they have no understanding of true comprehensive education because it's not available to them. I have friends in London who seem to be under undue pressure to choose private education to "keep up with the Joneses". Others of them have chosen private schools for secondary because the only decent school nearby is not the correct religion. I have another London friend who changed her religion to that of her husband to ensure their DCs would be top of the admissions list. And of course there is always a childcare issue because nobody (unless one of you is a trader) can afford to live in London with a mortgage on one salary.

I would never have chosen private education (unless backed into a corner), but I honestly don't think private schools are the issue here. There are always going to be some people who always want to send their children to private school because they can afford it without thinking and because it's what their parents did for them.

I think what the government needs to look at in the first instance is abolishing church-affiliated state secondary schools. Then they need to look at abolishing grammar schools. Remember that the original vision was to have 3 types of senior school - it never quite got off the ground in most parts of the country, and is certainly not appropriate today. There is no doubt that grammar schools made a massive difference to some families (mine included) in the 40s and 50s but now all they are doing is fuelling an artificial market in prep schools, tutoring and house prices in the counties that are still selective.

As someone who schooled in a different country, it is really shocking to read the views expressed here.
I have always thought that one of the underlying problem with state school was the attitude of the students and parents not so much poor quality teaching or state of buildings.
We are moving DS1 to private and DS2 will be joining him too this sept. The simple reason being that I do not think I can get want I want from state education in his current school. I do not have the fight that is needed and I am not sure the other parents want the same thing as me. Because education is free some parents expect teachers to also parent their children, noone takes responsibility.
My DS1 has only had less than 2 homeworks since June this year, meanwhile a lot of parents I have spoken to says it is fine and that they do too much anyway. I cannot change peoples attitude because their views are deeply embedded in them so are mine. At new private school DS1 will be getting homework Mon to Thurs amongst other things that are familiar to me.

Before anyone says you can do things at home with them, I already do, but because I was taught in a different system sometimes it is difficult to get things across to my DCs in the way that they can understand.

You are unlucky with your child's school and parents, then, iyatoda - your experience of state school and state school parents is not the same as mine. Funny that you think state school parents want their children parented for them, when one of the justifications for private school is the wrap around care for working parents and the fact that a lot of private schools get the children to do their prep before they even go home.

Converting the existing faith schools to multi-cultural schools and implementing normal proximity-based admissions requirements for those schools would mean that many more people in London were able to access their local primary school and be educated in their local community.

This would cut down on school drop-off transport issues and support the ability of parents to travel on to work, as well as obviating the need for some to go down the private school route simply to get a local school.

"In areas like Richmond isn't the private number of children educated supposed to be nearing 20%?"

I'm not sure of the exact figure, but that sounds about right.

However, AFAIK, currently Richmond and surrounding boroughs are struggling to provide state places for the children that they do educate (several years of temporary classrooms in Wandsworth, Kingston, Richmond, no funding yet available for secondary school places for current 'bulge' years), and this is a problem in other parts of the country too.

The problem with educating children, is that whatever your principles, you can't educate your child in some far off future when the government might provide the education your child needs, you have to educate them now.

As far as I can see, the only way that it would be possible for private schools to be abolished would be huge increases in tax for everybody, including those who currently benefit from a good local state school. I'm sure many parents who feel forced into sending their children to private schools would be very grateful for this more equitable funding of their child's schooling.

Yellowraincoat

We all dupe the system, if we are MC graduate parents.

By going to a Russell group Uni and marrying an Oxbridge graduate, I swing the odds in favour of having genetically brighter DCs.

These DCs are brought up in a house full of books and science talk. If the TV or radio are on its likely to be BBC2 or radio 4.

If they ask a question chances are me, DH, the bookcase or one of several computers knows the answer.

By moving nearer DHs work we moved to an area with several high tec firms.

This educated catchment gives rise to several very good local state schools.

Thus even without tutoring or going private my DCs get a far far better education than many in the inner city schools I helped in as a student could dream of.

Class sizes are a complete red herring, research has shown that class size makes little difference to academic outcome, it's the quality of the teacher that counts. Small class sizes can be a disaster socially (DS3 has been in small classes at state primary).

child care provision does not equal wanting school to parent your child rabbit. My DS1's state school has wrap around care too with a nursery and after school provision on site (7:30am to 6pm) and both are over subscribed so not sure where you are coming from with that. I work full time so does my DH. Are you advocating that 1 parent should be a SAHP?

Rabbit, those of us who missed out on a local state primary place in London are also missing out on wrap-around care in most instances, as this is not offered by the majority of local private schools.

More leisure time, cheap public transport, free museums and libraries, cheap internet access, the fact that anyone with a computer, radio or TV can turn on radio 4 or BBC2, good quality state education - weren't these supposed to be means of evening things out a bit? There's acknowledging that all people are different and circumstances can never be equal and that different people are interested in different opportunities, and there's saying that because of this fact, there's no point doing anything at all to address the inequalities in peoples' lives and opportunities.

Re class sizes, we chose the dds' primary school partly on the basis that they would get to make lots of friends, of both genders, many nationalities/cultures etc. dd1 had 20-26 children in her class up until now (just finished Y3) which I think is perfect - one of the indies we looked at (and didn't choose) had classes of 12, which seems a bit limited to me, especially at primary level.

30 (dd2's experience in Reception) is a bit busy, but with experienced TAs and small group work, they did really well. dd2 is a million times more confident, socially and physically, than she was a year ago.

I am pointing out that using the term "parenting" in the context of what some parents expect out of school is a stupid use of the word - there are many different ways to "parent" your child. What you mean is that some parents don't seem to value formal, academic education in the same way as you. To suggest this means they want school to do the parenting for them instead is saying something else altogether, on which you are actually totally opaque as to your meaning.

To me, it comes down to money. If one could afford it, one would go private. If one is borderline, than will prioritise between building up a good inheritance vrs private education. Who would not want 10 kids to a class rather than 30?!

Besides majority of the people I know when considering a school for their DCs are thinking is it a good school for my DCs (whether state primary, prep, comp, grammer or indie sec), is it easy to get to, what is the pastoral care like, what religious affiliation (if religious), and not which school can my DS mix with people from 'underpriviledged background', which is the best school to help close the social divide.
All these other factors comes later after you have decided that the school is right for your DS.

The other way round and there is somthing seriously wrong with you.

Thanks for calling me stupid rabbit. You need to calm down. It is difficult to engage otherwise.

I didn't call you stupid, I called the use of the word "parenting" stupid. Perhaps you would prefer the words ill advised - either way, there is a difference between calling someone stupid and calling their choice of words stupid, just as there is a difference between telling a child they are bad and telling them that they have done a bad thing.

Devora, I like your post.
But I think it is interesting that education holds a unique position of, as Beta would call it, hand-wringing. People with money make all sorts of choices to make their children's lives better, and some of these generally at the expense of the world at large. Somehow there is a particular taboo on this around education, as if it works much more directly than it does: as if sending your child to a private school actually and directly makes the child next door more likely to fail at school and have an impoverished life. I find this interesting.