Okay, give me reasons why I should educate my child privately rather than at an improving state comp. And vice versa

[scampadoodle]

I know it's been hashed over many, many times, but please, just once more (with feeling)

I went to a state comp, a high achieving one, and I felt I coasted a huge amount. Straight As was not a challenge for me, and I felt the schools taught purely to the syllabus.

My guess is that an 'improving' state school would operate along these lines:

• fiddling GCSE results - vocational qualifications, etc.
• strict discipline (this is not a bad thing) teaching strictly to the syllabus in order to obtain the requisite 5 A-Cs for each pupil

I guess you will find higher expectations and a broader challenge at the private school.

fiddling GCSE results???? are you mad?

Are the factors that previously made the comp "dire" still there? OP says it's now over-subscribed, that suggests it's improved enormously in wide opinion, and not any more bussing so many kids in from far away (so that factor has changed).

Our local High School had a headline GCSE pass rate of 30% one year. Out of that cohort, at least one went onto Oxbridge. So that's my gold standard of what might look dire, but wasn't (necessarily).

My tactic is to pump parents for opinions about their children's experiences of local schools, paying particular attention to parents of kids like mine. Do you have good reports for children like yours attending the comp?

I am coming around to thinking that a successful school experience is all about the social life: if child has a good social life (they enjoy & not too much mischief) then they will meet their academic potential at almost any (half-decent) school.

I agree that you need to be prepared to send DC2 to the private school as well unless the state school is outstanding with excellent facilities. A relative of mine had a similar dilemma and in the end their DDs went private up til year 11 then went to their local state 6th form college. 6th forms tend to be made up of motivated children (compared with years 7-11). Their eldest has just started at Oxford so it has worked really well for them.