What Annoys You About Independent Schools?

[zanzibarmum]

Me? Independent schools who:

• tell applicants not to tutor their children when the entire prep school set up is precisely about cramming for common entrance exams;
• refuse to explain content of common entrance exam, again which discriminates against state school applicants;
• entrance exam papers which are clearly biased - Latymer's practice paper asks a question about the size of a hockey stick;
• poo poo league tables when their whole raison d'etre is to churn out As and A*;
• promote all the sport they do but in practice do very little for most children;
• who do not standardise entrance exam scores for age - selecting therefore the oldest not necessarily the brightest (cf churning out As and A*;.

Clearly, there are lots of good things about some independent schools but generally they have an easy life and probably coast on the back of the intelligence (innate or prepped) on their students.

You can practise for VR and NVR and learn all the tricks, though.

I beg to differ, you can easily push kids thru VR and non VR with a lot of tutoring/help. 80% of our year 7's i would say have had tutoring to get thru 11plus or are heavily tutored at their prep school.

i don't think that goingunderground.

I think my son is kind, considerate, not overly academic, sensitive, not into sports but music and design/craft stuff.

different coloured socks for different bloody seasons.

Science Teacher thank you for engaging with this seriously but I can't agree with you. If papers are not published then a state school applicant who at best will be taught to level 5 in the SAT will still miss out on a whole range of material that the prep school applicant will have been taught by the January of the exam. State school primary children don't seem to be taught long division etc until Year 4 or 5.

I am not saying its the fault of the prep school but of the senior independent school - and then when you visit the school the headteacher gives a stern lecture why you shouldn't tutor your child. A recent independent school head told me she didn't know what proportion of the intake came from state schools - what is not measured can't be managed.

I couldn't give a hoot about school uniforms or hockey sticks. What sickens annoys me about independent schools is the inferred snobbery: "My children are too good for state school, how dreadful having to muck in with everyone else." I live in an area where there are a lot of ludicrously poncey prep schools and the rubbish you hear from the parents who send their children to these places is astounding from the patronising: "Oh, can you do swimming at state school?" to "Well, he's such a lovely child that we thought he would get bullied at a state school."

Added to that, the schools around here are extremely selective and, if a large proportion of the most able children are being skimmed off to attend them, it kind of skews the balance for everyone else. I hope they all go belly up in the recession.

Are you talking about 11+ or 13+ entry, zanzibar?

i really do think that if we can create a stable country we should start with making all education equal from a young age

i have no sympathy with those who have to 'go state from private' at all.

I think I see a lot more inverted snobbery on this thread than any snobbery in real life.

lol lala - yes i agree with you to a point

If you read the good schools guide the other thing that concerns me about independent secondary schools is the lax attitude of heads to drugs: "we know it goes on" rather than "we don't tolerate it".

Truth is, educationally, the gulf between state (GCSE and diploma dumbing down) and independent (option for IGCSE, Pre-U, IB) is widening and that the past 10 years of big expenditure increases on state schools is coming to an end. Despite all those terrible kilts it looks like independent schools will continue.

Science teacher 11+ entry

the way some of them make children think that they WILL succeed and then if they don't they feel like failures.

Why are you so interested in a school that so obviously discriminates against state school pupils in entrance exams.

In the two senior schools that my own children are both, both have about 50% of their 11+ pupils from state schools. That is a lot of places open to state school pupils.

Neither school publishes their entrance exams because they are not content specific, and one of these schools is selective and the other not. They both use NFER papers, and then ask the candidates to write a story based on a title or opening sentence, along with a speedy mathematics paper. If pupils are doing SATs, they shouldn't have a problem with an entrance exam.

As for preparing for NFER papers, you go to WH Smith and buy some Bond Assessment papers. To do about 3 of these papers is enough to prepare for an independent school assessment. At my boys' prep school, they would do these silently for about half an hour a week - no teacher input at all.

If grammer school tests require intensive coaching, that is hardly the fault of independent schools. There is probably a fear factor in grammer school entrances where parents don't want to take a chance so will do whatever it takes, even if there is no evidence of added value. Plenty of bright but otherwise ordinary kids get into grammer schools without coaching.

Both independent and grammer schools would prefer that the 'real child' is presented on the assessment day, rather than one coached up to the gills. Neither type of school wants to select the wrong child who may struggle with the real work.

I don't think grammar school tests do require intensive coaching over and above the tests at independent school but parents do it as they fear that its either that or remortgage to the hilt as we are going to do (if the state option in the locality is poor).

Agree that we would prefer to see real child.

Science teacher. I am not talking about a particular school - the ones I have seem all seem to indirectly discriminate against state school applicants. Maybe I haven't seen enough.
Sure the NFER exams are available - thing is I am not against indpendent, academically selective schools just that they should do more to ensure that their process, papers etc don't unfairly discriminate based on factors other than ability (age, primary school). I have more problems with non-academic independent schools - what's the point of them other than social selection.

Not sure what a non-academic school is (surely the point of a school is for primarily academics, and we all have to do English, Maths, Science, Humanities - academic subjects).

As for non-selective schools, well all kids deserve a good education, not just the super intelligent. They all have to go somewhere.

zanzibarmum

my DS will hopefully go to a not overly academic independent school. There are no comps in this area which suit his needs. he is not bright enough to pass 11 plus. He is shy and i know through experience as a teacher and working in schools for many years that he will be the child that teachers don't know the name of. I want him to be nurtured in a smallish setting and encouraged, given confidence.

The products of the schools, who are convinced that they Can Talk To Anyone, and have special Very Loud Voices With Extra Clear Diction for speaking to the lower orders.

eg Boris Johnson eh Bluestocking?

Science teacher, sorry maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you said:
"Neither school publishes their entrance exams because they are not content specific, and one of these schools is selective and the other not."

Clearly there are some indpendent schools whose market is the nice but dim - these I would say on non selective academically and therefore only socially selective.

Sillenach - you of course have that right and ability. Shame there are fewer options for a similar smaller school in the state system.

Stille, that is SPOOKY, I was going to add "see Boris Johnson passim" but decided that might be a bit too inflammatory!!

Yay! lets flame it up!

Bluestocking I like you style - or should that be BLUESTOCKING HOW VERY ORIGINAL.

Thing is the independent school kids I met at university were incapable of independent learing - so spoon fed they had been they were really struggling including kids from someo of the so called top public schools such a Marlborough - or maybe he was just not very bright; I remember he opted out of Economics and did Agricultural Economics instead which seemed to consist of wearing Green Wellies alot.