We can't decide!!

[gremlindolphin]

I wanted to look round a secondary school for dd1 and just know that it was the school for her but have ended up with two I like - both very different! DD likes both and isn't really bothered (although one served better choc brownies on open day!).

One mixed comprehensive state, large but with good house system so its a smaller pastoral unit, 10 mins away, some friends will go there, 54% A-Cs for GCSE and has a good inclusive feel to it.

The other is smaller mixed selective independent (she passed exam having failed 11+), 20 mins away, 1 friend already there, more traditional range of subjects, 100% A-Cs at GCSE, again good feel to it.

We can afford the fees. Dd is fairly quiet and enthusiastic, current head says she will do well anywhere as her attitude to everything is so good and she has us to support her. DD2 is following on 3 years behind.

I went to a comprehensive and did okay although I don't think it was probably the best school for me. Dh went to very lovely public school and thinks that if you can afford it you should pay for your children's education.

I'm in such a muddle as i can imagine her at either. I am not really sure how any one can help me but any words of wisdom appreciated!!

OP
go to the BBC league tables ,
reading left to right, my DC's comp got
78 (GCSE + equiv) ,37 (EBACC) ,78 (GCSE only) , 1000.8 (VA)
it is a school that a LOT of people who can afford private send their kids to - several a year come in from the private preps
there is no 6th form

if that helps as a comparative snapshot!
and state leaves more money for ponies, holidays and other stuff - which is what happens round here!

Ok looked DS1 comp up 75% GCSE or equiv 25 EBACC (what the hell is that?) GCSE 75% VA 1019, points 901 so what does that tell me?
The GCSE figures were only marginally different (4-5%) than most indies even the fairly well known selective ones although not as good as one selective famous indie (CE requirement 60%) and a very selective grammar.

Happy -those results look really good.

Ebac is number of kids who passed English, maths, science, a language and either history or geography.

The VA of 1019 is excellent.

The dcsf league tables will tell you more.

Thats good to know Heads always telling us were the top non selective comp in a very large county I have always taken it for granted that he's telling us the truth; he obviously is.
But Indigo I still pay for DS2!
?dcsf league tables?
Where does all this jargon come from? I work in a jargon infested world where your only any good if your can spout the current in fashion policy written using words that I've never and would never link together in the same sentence or the new ever changing government dictate. I consider and am considered by those who know me to be highly articulate and educated and I cant get my head around it. I'm not even able to formulate coherent sentences out of some of the stuff I see written about and by state schools. How on earth do those who are disadvantaged manage? People wonder why I feel comfortable in the independent sector at least they speak the same language as I do.

DCSF - Department for Children Schools and Families - you know, Michael Gove's lot

Ah I learn something new every day.

By the way I can't stand that Gove chap. I couldn't stand him when he was on the Moral Maize on Radio 4 and I cant stand him now he's in government. He is smugness and self satisfaction personified. Every time I hear him on the radio I (no TV) I rush for the off button.

I agree with BrigitBigKnickers about there being less disruptive pupils at the indie schools - most parents and pupils had to jump through hoops to get into their independent schools and then struggle to keep up payments...neither the parents nor the school would tolerate persistent misbehaviour. In the state school system, there seems to be a very "all inclusive" ethos where the system attempts to reform badly behaved pupils to no avail, before exclusion ever takes place. I know it is somewhat unsympathetic of me to want badly behaved pupils dealt with more strictly, but when it comes to my child's safety, I have no empathy for others.

No, not all state school systems are full of thugs and the like - there are real gems amongst the state school system, however, generally speaking, the state school system, by law, has to be seen to be trying to reeducate and reform bad behaviour - it is an idealistic ethos that even I, from a distance, can applaud...but, when my child is involved, i prefer not to be so virtuous.

Mummle
at my DCs school, the badly behaved kids almost without exception have disorganised / criminal / absent / deeply stupid parents
makes it hard to manage the children other than by keeping them in school away from bad influences

there is one particular exception and her own (lovely) parents and siblings have given up on her - she's already been expelled from one state school.

NB if the state schools did just expel the trouble makers, they would pass the time by breaking into the houses of those who could afford to buy things
as my next door neighbour had last week

Punchy comments TalkinPeace!

Colleger
My views are somewhat tainted by the area and the fact the new Academy did expel a load - and ended up getting more windows smashed than the rest of us.

I went to selective private gels schools and then to an RG
I had NO comprehension about the way the world really worked before I was 21
and sadly we are being governed by people who genuinely do not understand the great unwashed because they have never interacted with them.

My DCs do not socialise with the disruptive kids - and luckily good use of setting means they get to work in peace - but they know they exist and know that they are not in a moral vacuum that can be magicked away with initiatives and consultants.
Especially as a lot of the management consultants are from the same background as I was.

indigobell Thanks for the offer. Seen the figures - I was just being a bit thick ;)

Ok just going to have a bit of a rant!
As someone who in my working day interacts on a regular basis with "the great unwashed" (what a patronising term) and their children, the upper middle classes/aristocracy and their children and Mr and Mrs Average and their children I think you're all being a little smug and judgemental to assume that it is the "great unwashed" whose children misbehave. As in all walks of life their are good and bad in all sections of society with the good being in the majority. Years ago DS2 was at a tiny village primary the two worst behaved children in the school was the son of the local traveller family and the local hereditary peer with his massive pile and land as far as the eye can see.
Most parents from what ever their back ground want the best for their children; they don't always parent in the way that I do (which may not be right) but their motivation is the same.

Rant over!

Oh and by the way my DS2 at his frightfully posh and exceedingly expensive boarding school does "socialise" in his holidays with a child viewed by many as exceedingly "disruptive" but he definitely isn't from the "great unwashed" nor does it my DS any harm because its not infectious!

happy
there were two paragraphs in my post
they covered two groups of people
I am more than aware that wealth and opportunity do not lead to good behaviour.
But there are many people who assume that paid for schools will save their little darlings from encountering dysfunctional families and children and disruptive behaviour.
If only!

Do you know I have discovered if we treat people like savages they behave like savages regardless of the their age or for that matter background. But if you exclude the truly deranged (who really frighten me) the pissed and those who are drugged up to the eye balls most people if when the label "trouble maker" is removed and are treated with courtesy, understanding and are properly listened too respond in the same way. You may think this is a naive view but I have worked with all these people now for nearly 30 years (God is it that long no wonder I look tired) and only the truly deranged/and drunks have ever seriously waved knives and/or throw chairs at me!

happy... and talk... we can say this til the cows come home, and will never stop the blind belief that paying fees buys courtesy and confidence [because, of course, that has nothing to do with the home influence] and other people's values and behaviour are like transmitted germs. hey ho

It comes down to how good a school is and that's a complex cocktail of leadership and humanity and canny humour and basic luck of peer group too. Not whether you pay fees or any other performance indicator.

i've obviously got out of the left side of the bed today. I'll balance it out tomorrow by getting out the right or perhaps the middle!

Guys - it is not that paying fees buys courtesy and confidence! It is that the independent schools will not tolerate thuggery - the pupil would not be placated, indulged, or kept in school to keep him from bad influences (which is social services' job - not the school's). Why should other children's learning be hindered because of, as you say "TalkingPeace2" that their parent are idiots. If a rich kid in an indie school is a bully or thug or whatever, he is no better than anyone else because he is rich or because he is in an independent school - he should be chucked out, as well! Nobody is calling anybody the "great unwashed" - many pupils attending independent schools do so on scholarships, or a combination of bursary and scholarship - they treasure their places and work hard to maintain decent standards. This is not a class issue - but an issue of tolerating and indulging thuggery in our schools or not!

[yawn]

Tolerance of thuggery is not related to educational sector.

Some of the naughtiest kids I have seen have been at private school. They behave at school but some are utterly rude when they come to one's home. I even had one boy talk to me as if he was a member of staff (well, servant in his country) in his household and he demanded I make him spaghetti bologna isle at 9:30pm at night. I gave him toast!

Currently, there are some kids at my son's music school and it worries me greatly!

Mummle unfortunately that rich bully or thug comes with £33 000 payoff and many schools particularly those who struggle to fill their vacancies find that irresistible.

Au contraire, most of the good London Day Schools I know of are so oversubscribed that they could fill any place ten-fold, if they had to expel a pupil...

Colleger - the lack of behaviour that you witnessed happened outside of school - not in school. I dare say that, in school, that little 'brat' is probably well behaved and polite - indie schools do not necessarily "create" better or sterling characters, just better learning environment! My point is that children are sent to school to learn and to be empowered through education and to learn to aspire to great things in their futures; this learning should not be hindered by the laxity in behavioural standards that seems to be prevalent in the state sector. All children will soon learn that the world is not sugar-coated and that there are all sorts of people in the word; however, exposing young children to a plethora of positive role-models and a sense of ambition and aspiration, rather than having them witness delinquent behaviour, is inevitably a better option, if given the choice.

Im always surprised how tolerant independent schools. London day schools may be oversubscribed but many rural schools with mediocre results are not and therefore do take children others wouldn't touch with a barge pole.