is private REALLY better?

[ChuppaChups]

just out of interest, i would appreciate some OPINIONS on this area as i am seriously considering the move to private from state. The main reason being is we are now financially able to do so.

So, is it better and why?

Thanks

Bonsoir Anna, I think you're conflating two things. In order to be able to get the benefit of any 'VA' (in itself a disputed notion) children had to be able to get in to Grammars in the first place.

The studies from the sixties and seventies show that in the vast majority, children from semi-skilled and un-skilled households were unable to do this.

So, Grammars didn't offer an equal leg-up because those from the lower classes couldn't often get in to access any benefit such schools offered.

I say again though, if you're happy with the notion that only 1.5% of the working classes were intelligent enough to get benefit from grammar school education, then what we're talking about is being happy with a proletariat and lumpen proletariat with little or no hope of improvement. I don't think that you would be happy with that, but I do think that this is the logical end-point of your thinking.

OrphanAnnie - education aint just about wages. Even if it were, the effect of graduate education on wages is a good deal more complicated than it might at first seem.

UQD - Grammar Schools are not the answer to social mobility. As Sleeperservice has pointed out (and not just anecdotally)only a very small proportion of working class children access a Grammar School education.

You only have to look at the situation in Northern Ireland where over 40% of pupils are Grammar School Educated (and reaping the rewards of significantly better exam results than national averages). There is still an unacceptable proportion of children denied access to a high quality educational experience.

Going backwards is not the answer to upward social mobility for all - that is what we want, isn't it? .

I would agree 100% that it isn't just about wages, however very few people who I grew up with would agree, if their pay packet or the amount of holidays they have per year stays the same then they wouldn't see the point.
There are times I agree with them, education is fantastic but you don't have to go to school or university for that.

"Going backwards is not the answer to upward social mobility for all - that is what we want, isn't it?"

How can everyone be socially mobile in an upward direction, surely that is completely impossible ?
I sat my tea out when my mother announced she was middle class, she lives in an ex council house, works as a HCA in A&E and hasn't an O level to her name but she feels/thinks she is middle class. Maybe the lines are much more blurred than we think.

OrphanAnnie - I think we're actually saying similar things - I think there's more than one kind of education.

I would also say that there's nothing like a good university course for opening your mind to something that you thought you knew about - especially when it comes to things that seem 'obvious'.

Education is emancipation, and the right kind of education gives one the tools to see the world in a new and amazing way.

OrphanAnnie

We could live in a more equal society, less differential in terms of wages, life expectancy and education.

that would be progress for all.

I cannot agree that Value Added is a disputed notion . What is very hard is accurate measurement of VA, not that it goes on. All education is "value added". But the fact that it is highly difficult to create an accurate measurement of VA doesn't mean that it isn't a useful tool for discussion, and for understanding what actually should be going on in schools.

We already do live in a "more equal society": taxation is raised disproportionately from the rich and used disproportionately to subsidise the lives of the poor, as well as to provide services from which all members of society, regardless of income, benefit from equally. That is a good thing.

Annie - fair enough. For the purposes of the argument lets accept both your last points.

However - do you think it's right that Grammars only educated 1.5% of the population in St Annes? Do you think that social mobility is enhanced by the 11+? Do you agree with the proposition that we should expect children from working class or under-class backgrounds to fail in their education?

Annie Anna - fair enough. For the purposes of the argument lets accept both your last points.

However - do you think it's right that Grammars only educated 1.5% of the population in St Annes? Do you think that social mobility is enhanced by the 11+? Do you agree with the proposition that we should expect children from working class or under-class backgrounds to fail in their education?

I think people are misled by the grammar school situation at the moment. They are dominated by the middle-class "pushys" who have been tutored because that seems to be the way to get in now - everyone does it so you've got to.

That is not the principle behind the grammar school system, and is not the way I remember grammar school being. It's happened partly because the numbers have been so drastically reduced.

Have been attempting to follow, but there are so many different arguments now... Just to throw this in though. Some people seem to think the "old" grammar school system is, perhaps, a better option that the current system. My parents both went through it. Mum went to the grammar school, having passed hre 11+. Dad failed the 11+ (twice - again at 12+) and went to the secondary modern. From what I understand, thi smean that Dad was encouraged to have totally different aspriations - students at the secondary modern were pushed towards, and given training for, trades, or manual jobs, whereas Mum, at the grammar school, was encouraged to do well academically. Interestingly, they both ended up teaching (Dad after a number of years doing other stuff - he financed himself through university when I was a child) but it's Dad who has the Masters degree, not Mum. These days, if certain kids were told, from age 11, that they were unlikely to achieve significantly at GCSE or A Level, and should therefore must do vocational training instead, that they are not going to make it as an accountant/lawyer/teacher/doctor/manager of multinational company, there would be an outcry. But that's what the "old" grammar schools did, isn't it? Branded kids as "failures" from age 11. How is that social mobility?

Ooo, lots of typos in that. Sorry.

Because there are so few grammar schools and I find it hilarious that there are 4 in the towns nearby that nobody under 45 could afford to buy a 3 bed semi in (we're talking £450k and not London or SE) that is causing the elitism amongst the grammars schools more than anything else, if every town had one the problem would reduce.
Maybe the academies and the specialist colleges will be the answer they haven't been given enough time yet.
However going back to the biggest influence on a child's success being the parent not the school then clearly there needs to be issues addressed before the child even gets to school and parents need to feel once in the school their children are safe, which is my issue with state education, 30 in a class is crowd control not teaching.

I think secondary schools run a grammar system in house now, we have a grammar stream as well as a vocational stream who start on that path in year 9. The vocational stream focus on core subjects, are encourages to take certain GCSEs and away from others and sent out on work placements.

I teach classes of 26-30 and do not do crowd control, it takes an awful lot of work on my part and requires me to be on top form but I educate, I do not do crowd control.

Of course I would like to see smaller classes, I left a school that deliberately undermined my attempt to create smaller top sets.

Pearls just out of interest, do your children mix within sets and streams anyway ?
I know we certainly didn't at our comp, the swots were in top sets and never mixed with the inevitably poorer kids in bottom anyway so all this social mobility doesn't seem to natural occur in whatever environment. There was a bit more of a mix in the middle sets but when I look at our school reunion, who's kept in touch etc and people who've married each other from school there aren't any surprises at all.

The primary school we've left had 34 eight year olds in it, do you think you'd have the same chances with teaching them or would you spend most of your time trying to keep their attention ?

Not a great deal, I notice within my tutor group who are key stage 4 that the top set kids tend to also hang out together. There is tbh some divide along class lines as well, with some suspicion that we are trying to make everyone middle class and that if you are from a "rough" background you just don't fit. It is a very middle class staff as well, I as a northern working class woman do stand out.

"30 in a class is crowd control not teaching" is such cliche, and really undermines the efforts of the majority of teachers. This is such a media-inspired impression, and it's laughable. I don't crowd control either. I deliver carefully planned and differentiated lessons to classes of up to 30, in which each student is encouraged to achieve and develop. Is it any wonder teachers feel ground down when this is the opinion so many people hold?

I think 34 is too big, although you will find or you should do that with that many there will have a number of teaching assistants. I have to admit when we had our brief flirtation with the private sector one of the things I was unhappy with is the fact that there were 32 in the class.

I teach secondary where the students are less needy, so perhaps class size matters less.

OA - I don't think teachers can really dictate kids' social groups. Even in schools with no streaming, kids will choose who they want to hang out with.

But if you spend most of your day with certain students you are more likely to form friendships with them. SO although we dont dictate the set up of the school does influence it. You will also gravitate towards people with whom you have things in common, intelligence and interests will be a factor in that.

And is that wrong? Surely it's like that all the way through life?

No I dont think it is wrong.

Kemble twins Yes there was a TA in a class with 34 but that's rather a cop out isn't it, if teachers are the educated, trained professionals and that's such a compelling argument against the private sector, that the teachers aren't as qualified then providing TA's shouldn't be acceptable either, why are the unions standing by and allowing teaching to be so devalued ???

Pearls You'd also gravitate towards those with a similar background in a state comp, where as believe it or not my DH went to a grammar the only kid in his year to be wearing a black £15 blazer because he couldn't afford the £45 blue one and nobody said a word to him.
In our comp people were physically hurt for wearing the wrong socks and spent hours outside the head of houses office for not having the right PE kit.
I personally feel that schools are generally awful places and 99% of actual learning takes place outside of those environments but I haven't the confidence to home ed so private school is the next best thing for us.