Should I withold fees for Independent School ?

[TillyP]

My DTS's attend an Independent Secondary school and are in Yr11 about to take their GCSE's.
Whenever we attend parent's evening we are told they are doing fine etc etc but their mock exam results were quite poor so now they are predicted low grades.
The whole point of paying for an Independent School is to get a good education so can anyone in a similar situation tell me whether I would be within my rights to withold fees for their last couple of terms?
In any other walk of life, if one receives poor service you are not expected to pay, but with schooling you seem to have to pay up whether or not the school has done a good job!

A clear case MollieO that you don't assume that private=good. Keep questioning and remove if you don't like it. Don't sit back and let them get on with it-education is still a partnership between home and school-whether or not you are paying.

But MollieO, assume for a minute that the problem lies at home - ie not enough time spent revising. The OPs DTSs could well have done well all year, achieved good grades for HW, had good reports, good comments at parents evening etc.

This does not mean that the school is trying to decieve the parents, or that they are just telling the parents what they want to hear, or that the teachers have not done their job, does it?

When it comes to revision - the buck stops with the pupils and the parents. No teacher, whether at an idependent or state school can actually do the revision for the pupils, can they?

They simply must not have done enough revision - this can be the only explanation unless all the pupils in their class have been predicited similar grades, surely?

So, why exactly should the teachers spend their own time coming up with 'an action plan to remedy this?'

And MollieO I don't see how your situation is opposite to OP's situation at all or how it is even relevant.

The OP (unless I've missed part of the thread) is about her TDSs doing well all year but then being predicted lower grades than they expected at GCSE.

Apologies if I have missed something but I don't think she hasn't even commented on their intelligence - she's never mentioned them being bright, average or otherwise, just that they are predicted to do worse in GCSE than she expected.

OP said that the feedback was "doing fine etc etc".

"Fine" is a middling comment to me (eg in comparison to doing well). Were school reports more encouraging? Were actual marks given? (I've known a school which gives your DC's marks, then the mark range for the group - does help you know how the child is faring in the cohort).

I guess it would be the in the same way like NHS and Private health care - if the operation doesn't work then do you not pay the private healthcare that have doen this?

Yes you pay as you know the risks from the start

meditrina - I thought the same thing about the 'fine' comment, but have already possible been a bit harsh so didn't mention it.

IMO 'fine' is teacher talk for ticking along nicely. If I ever got a 'fine' comment from a teacher I would want to know more, eg 'what would DD/DS have to be doing for you to consider him/her to be doing exceptionally well, do you think he/she is doing enough to reach his/her full potential, what should I do be doing at home to help/encourage this?'.

I'm beginning to wish I never started this thread in the first place. I've never felt so judged by people who don't even know me or my kids!

Firstly, a private education was not my first choice for my kids. My husband also had quite a big say in the matter!!!!!!

Secondly, yes thay have been getting studies grades which say THEY ARE DOING WELL!!!!!!!!! thats my point!!!!

Thirdly, I do not "sit back and let them get on with it"
I check what their homework is every noght, make sure they've done it and then sign their prep book to indicate as much.

Perhaps I should pose another question. Do you think University Students should be able to withold fees if they are dissatisfied with the tuition?

So you feel that the school has failed your dc and in as much have been leading you down the garden path about how well they where doing and now have turned and said actually they aren't doing so well at all and will get lower grades than we predicated.

So can you do something now to alert the school to actually do something to make sure your dc get the grades they where predicated before otherwise you will take legal action?

Have you yet asked the school about their take on what is going on?

I'm so sorry, Tilly - I didn't mean to offend you. I think people in all sectors are often inclined to leave it to the school to sort out problems, and it's often difficult to intervene, actually; schools don't always encourage it. But evidently that wasn't your problem. I just think perhaps we're all urging you to focus on solving the GCSE problem/s, rather than issues about fees.

How big is the gap between their grades and their mocks marks? This is obviously the point to make, because what you now need to do is to focus on getting them extra help - form the subject teachers concerned, and if necessary from outside. My sense is that you'll be more likely to succeed if fees aren't a big part of the conversation.

As to your question about university fees - there are all kinds of problems here. If a poor grade means a fee refund then the result will very simply be grade inflation.

If poor teaching is concerned, what does this mean? Does it mean, 'whoah, that's waaaay less time than somebody at another university got' or 'that is way less time with someone with tenure as opposed to a postgraduate' or 'I didn't understand a word s/he said', then who is to adjudicate about this?

My bet is that lots of teaching in every sector is poor, but - sorry - students are not always good judges; what they very often like is a handout with bullet points that they can plug directly into a term paper, and this isn't always the best way of developing intellectually. You actually have to pry their anxious fingers off you and let them go it alone a bit... and if all doe snot go well this can be interpreted as failed teaching provision.

You could ask the same kinds of questions about GCSEs, I think. Maybe your dcs were if anything too well supported, hence floundering in mocks and not realising it was ultimately down to them to revise and practice?

Hope this helps. I mean it to help!

Thanks sieglinde. I am new to this 'talk' lark so didn't quite realise what I might be starting.

Obviously it is up to the kids to study and we try hard to encourage that at home, but any parent of teens will tell you that teenagers "know everything and are always right" :O and as such, they are very resistant to what they see as parental interference.
Therefore one would hope that their school was doing all they could to get the best results out of the kids. That is after all how Independent schools 'sell' themselves.

I do think a lot of the blame for the sorry state of education (ie 50% of kids not acheiving 5 GCSE's) in general must ultimately lie with the teaching. I know about four teachers personally as friends and none of them chose teaching as their first career choice but rather did it because they couldn't think of anything else and all of them hate the kids and hate teaching!

I find it hard to think of a professions where is it more important to love what you do. I also think that teachers are way undervalued in todays society.

You need to find out why their mocks were so bad then if they have been doing well. I assume you mean they have been doing well in class exams prior to mocks? If so then I'm sure their teachers will also be keen to find out what has happened and rectify it.

If their teachers aren't bothered or surprised then I would be voting with my feet. Not all private schools are good. I would expect guidance and support for revision and homework as well as ensuring good work whilst at school. There is too much work to be done to expect your dcs not to have to work hard at home revising.

I went to a grammar school and remember having to spend huge amounts of time revising at home. It was expected and checked up on to ensure it was done.

HAHAHAHA!

Are you serious OP?!

Have a and ponder whether you can buy academic ability. You may have bought smaller class sizes, well-behaved, focused students and even (possibly) better teaching, but grades are always down to the students.

HAHAHAHAHA

Look at the school's overall results. If good numbers of students are achieving highly, you absolutely cannot blame the school. No school will ever provide guarantees.

My daughter received a state school report saying she was predicted two E's in her Science. We were all quite upset to see it. I told her she'd need to take her learning into her own hands and work her socks off if she wanted to get a better grade. We obtained lots of revision sources inc past papers which I marked for her She did. Her results (foundation module because of her predicted marks) this week were C and D (one mark off C).

Tell him to pull his socks up, get revising and do his best to knock those mock grades - whatever they are - into oblivion.

Tilly, the very mention of fee-paying schools does upset some people on Mumsnet a lot, and in a way it's understandable; so few people can afford them nowadays, many people are ideologically opposed to them, and yet they are likely to lead to perceived - if not actual - advantages. I've messaged you privately as I too have a 16-year-old embarking on GCSES...

I still don't honestly understand how this can have happened.

I am sorry op if you are feeling attacked but it makes no sense to me. I maybe missing something.

Once my son started his gcses we got termly updates showing effort grades and predicted gcse grades.
We have seen the exam pass rates at the school so have always known that they are routinely achieving very high grades. We spoke with the teachers and ensured that ds was working on track to get the results he needed.

So either your school have been ignoring your dts for some reason and are happy to let them perform poorly and drag pass rates down - which sounds odd
Or pass rates are crap and you haven't noticed.
Or your dts are not working and no one has noticed. Which again sound likely.

Dss school expects A*s and they would be really uptight if a boy was going to pull the rate down. So why would your dts school apparently not care?

It doesn't make sense.
That is why I am befuddled. Not because I don't wish to believe you. I can't understand why the school would be disinterested.

Are they actually lower grades than expected? Yes, with a good education every child can do their best, but not every child can do well at GCSE. I have a parents' evening next week, in which I will say how well some of my students are working, and that they are on course to reach their target of an F. That is the reality for some children. I'm not writing them off, and they are working every bit as hard for their F as other are working for their A*.

FallenMadonna, I'm curious; do you really teach classes with a spread of grades so huge? And if the F-people are working, why are they doing no better? Just humbly trying to learn...

I do think a lot of the blame for the sorry state of education (ie 50% of kids not acheiving 5 GCSE's) in general must ultimately lie with the teaching.

I know schools in England are not perfect and BTW am not a teacher myself, but this kind of statement always riles me somewhat. The assumption that all kids can get 5 GCSEs or even 5 A-Cs if teachers only worked harder! My DS1 has ASD and learning difficulties and he is totally incapable of sitting an exam, never mind GCSEs. So he will always be in that statistic. But he had a fabulous education in his state schools - he was taught to read and write amongst many other things - when we had been told that he would never do any of these things!

Also, I have personal experience that teachers in private schools are not better than those in state schools by a long way. You are mainly paying for facilities, freedom from the National Curriculum, smaller class sizes and to avoid kids like my son!

I teach a number of different sets of varying abilities. I don't teach A* and F in the same group.

And the F graders are not doing any better because that is their ability level. If they didn't work, they would get a U.

FM, it's striking in a way that you feel quite a lot more confident than I would about saying there just are low-ability people. I wonder if that's actually true among people who don't actually suffer from a disability. I just haven't had enough experience to be sure either way.

Here's a different approach, which is legitimate. Go in to speak to the head, express disappointment at the school's handling of your children's education, and then tell them they are on rolling notice with immediate effect if things don't improve. Possible grounds for discontent: teachers not turning up to teach, teachers not preparing lessons properly, too many supply teachers, books not being marked, children repeating work because teachers not communicating from year to year, children studying the wrong topics for public examinations because teachers misread the syllabus, that kind of thing. Keep evidence of any of these occurrences and it will substantiate your complaint. With rolling notice, once a term has passed, you can pull your children out at any point thereafter. If the school hasn't done any of these things wrong, then ultimately it's part of the risk you take when you go private.

DS2 went to a state school that most local parents would not have wanted to send their children to. He achieved 7 A and 5 A's at GCSE. There were actually some fantastic teachers and management team at that school by the time he was going through (his brother went through 4 years earlier in quite a traumatic time for the school and he managed 4 As, 7A,s and 2 c's).
DS2 name was in local paper a week after GCSE results day along with several others of his cohort with the headteacher saying that their results were on a par with any school (private or otherwise) in the UK.
I think that your children have got to use the next 2 or 3 months to really get their heads down, go to any easter revision classes that their school may offer and use these mock results as their kick up the arse.
No matter what anyone says about GCSE,s getting easier there is still a lot of planning and revision time needed to get those A*/A results, and at the end of the day they have to do it for themselves, you can't do it for them.
Good luck to them. They will need those Good GCSE results to access the best courses at the best universities.

How much experience do you have of teaching sieglinde?

And what do you mean by "a disablility"?