Fed up with the education divide ?

[johnbunyan]

As a former Head of an independent school, I am fed up with the ideological divide in education, and want to start a national discussion on constructive ways to help the state and independent systems grow naturally together. I am secretary of a national group of independent day schools ( mostly the old direct grant schools ) and we look back to a time when there was much greater co-operation and a real sense of social mobility. Can we return to such a consensus ? I would love to hear ideas and start building towards such a consensus, since, as we approach the 2015 General Election, it will seem a long way away! I sense that many parents would like government and schools to work something out -and quickly -since the educational divide is simply not helpful to anybody - least of all the present generation. How many out there agree?

I went to selective private schools

my kids are at a non selective comp and are getting a much broader and deeper education with much less bullying and better opportunities

and I have money to spare for interesting holidays

And I said what I said from the perspective of having been at a private primary and a Direct Grant secondary.

And if I were to, you know, swap my second hand hatchback for a beaten up ancient Volvo, and downgrade my camping hols to...shorter camping hols, and make other sacrifices, it's possible I could scrape together the fees for Independent school, so I'm not bitter or jealous, either.

(but lucky, in our unleafy unfashionable area of s London, to actually have a choice of good comps. I realise that isn't the case everywhere. But reliable provision of good comps should surely alleviate all this angst, shouldn't it?)

Oh, actually I have just checked and the fees to the relatively local Independent that would be a natural for us to consider if we were going to consider it is a lot more than I thought. So I couldn't afford it. But that's OK

I think there's a similar sense of social mobility now to that of the 60s (my parents' generation) - it's just that the mobility is now downwards instead of up.

School friends (first or second generation of private education, lots of parents from grammars) can't afford to send their children to private schools, nor the types of houses their parents brought them up in. A degree doesn't let you access the jobs that A-levels did 25 years ago. The only ones who are.considering private education are the ones where their parents and grandparents have enough spare cash to pay for it or else a house for their children - a much smaller subset.

Basically you have a third of Etonians etc running the country and the other 2/3 of their year settling down into bog-standard middle classness and being grateful for good comps.

"and the other 2/3 of their year settling down into bog-standard middle classness and being grateful for good comps"

My plumber went to Eton. He's a very good plumber.

And good plumbers now make more money than very many low-paid highly academically educated mc folk. THAT is a contemporary social mobility, and as such, all fine.

And many builders own better houses than highly academically educated folk too. They do them up themselves and climb the housing ladder much more quickly.

Many of the families I know that use private schools have made their money through relatively manual jobs or through starting their own businesses. They want (and can afford) to give their kids "the best" and assume that means they need to pay. They're not necessarily very well educated themselves.

Oh, and one more thing I notice about families I know that use private schools - they're more likely to have an only-child. All their eggs are in one basket, and again they're determined to give their child "the best". Often they're older parents too. Those correlations are much stronger than any class correlation.

In most walks of life social mobility relates to aspiration, not the type of school you go to. (So long as your teachers don't squash your aspirations of course).

But is the question itself over simplified. What is an ideological divide?
Surely the change in demographics of the UK has greatly impacted the standard of education available in various local areas. If some local schools have over 50% of children as non native speakers how exactly can a teacher reach set targets when perhaps the parents cannot support learning at home.
Going back to the early 70's state school we had 1 immigrant( Bangladesh refugee who went on to be a doctor) in the entire school of 400 and 1 divorced family and everyone's Father worked. Social structure, mobility and diversity has evolved immeasurably since then so I disagree that social mobility is being hampered. In the late 60's many of my classmates mothers were housewives. Today many women are working full time in professions which wasn't the norm in the 50's or 60's. High unemployment and lack of industry impacts social mobility.
There are some excellent state schools but the macro economics and demographic and catchment area of some under-performing schools cannot be dismissed. I sincerely believe teachers in such schools would prefer additional professional classroom assistants or support teachers, less form filling , more time for lesson planning and more freedom to actually teach than additional handholding from a posh neighbour! The state schools need the internal support structure that private schools have, not incessant twiddling with statistics but that's down to government investment.

Forgot to add the teacher to pupil ratio too!

I do apologise - I don't know why this thread has really niggled me. - Quite possibly the inference of state pupils being inferior and all parents naturally aspiring to private education. The Government should be taking advise from State sector heads and teachers to listen and confront the issues under performing schools/pupils face.

Not everyone chooses private schooling to gain A* and Oxbridge and as another poster has said the high performing state schools are equally high performing and there are plenty of non academic indies. Its about having a choice and a best fit scenario when deciding to opt for a fee paying school.

State and Independent should not "grow together" they should both offer a high standard of education that equips pupils to function as adults to the best of their ability.

My un-educated opinion is teacher training and qualifications should become more specialized and in line with a 2014 society not a 1960's. Salaries reworked accordingly.
Primary school Math - Only taught by a Math graduate/teacher
Primary school English by and English Graduate/teacher
Primary Science by a Science teacher/graduate
General primary school teachers to cover Art /humanities/PE
remove the rubbishy/unnecessary parts of the curriculum and focus on the core subjects through to Y5 at Y6 introduce separate sciences.

Schools to run the school in a way that best fits the pupils it is educating and enabled financially to have specialist teachers as needed in order to ensure those at danger of not grasping the core subjects early on( for whatever reason) are supported . These would be more highly trained/specialized teachers not just support staff.

below average children at non selective Indies generally fare better because of pastoral/1-1 tuition.

Areas of specialized teaching at all state schools to command a higher salary scale i.e.. teachers who maybe specialize in Inner city teaching.

Secondary schools to have dedicated full time Tertiary education advisors/trained admissions officer to help with University or college applications/interviews.

Again apologies for this long rant but the overall divide you identify IMO isn't where you think it is.

People are also more geographically mobile. Up and coming cities like Perth in Western Australia are full of state educated, aspirational young Brits (and other Europeans) starting businesses and building big homes with swimming pools on relatively cheap land. They're certainly not bemoaning the fact that their parents couldn't afford private education. They're too busy enjoying themselves.

Stressed I think your summation is accurate, we're busy looking in all the wrong places and ignoring pretty much the obvious. The problem with social mobility is a melting pot of varying factors. I like your recommendations in the last post, if only Gove will take those on board!

Stressed I couldn't agree more.

Both DH and I were state educated. DS went to local primary but at age 9 got a scholarship to a private prep. We were blown away with the level of the teaching. As you said, specialised teachers (in this case, in all subjects) from Form 4. I feel if the state had offered this kind of indepth learning we wouldn't have felt the need to look elsewhere and it was definitely outwith our comfort zone going private.

I sincerely believe teachers in such schools would prefer additional professional classroom assistants or support teachers, less form filling , more time for lesson planning and more freedom to actually teach than additional handholding from a posh neighbour! The state schools need the internal support structure that private schools have, not incessant twiddling with statistics but that's down to government investment.

Yes, yes, yes!

The great divide between state and independent is that independent have more money, have more freedom to choose how to spend it, and freedom from gvt meddling and constant top-down edicts! And much as I particularly hate Gove I think the last gvt were equally guilty of this.

Ask the Heads and staff of good functioning comps how to improve the state sector overall (and within that the ability to set up schools that suit the local context) , and don't fob them off if they say, amongst other suggestions "Money. More staff. Less Bureaucracy!".

stressed I agree.

I volunteered for a long time at my local primary and am still governor of a secondary school.

At each turn I've been asked what sort of things my DC's private schools do, with a view to trying to import them.

But frankly without money, space, tirelessly supportive parents, it's pointless thinking in those terms.

DC's prep school had specialist teachers pretty much from reception, all teachers were specialists by year four. How could my local primary possibly afford that? Just not doable. Better that it looked at another state school that was managing on the same resources for fresh ideas.

I think also that the independent sector needs to accept that many (most?) parents don't want what is on offer at independent schools.

I can tell you from years on MN and chatting to parents in RL, that the majority simply don't want it!!!!

"I think also that the independent sector needs to accept that many (most?) parents don't want what is on offer at independent schools."

I don't understand this-what sort of things do you mean?

Small class sizes, homework, early introduction of (meaningful) language lessons are all dismissed here on MN ... 'there's no evidence that they help'...

Yet these are bastions of the independent sector from day one.

Similarly, competition (lots of it), daily sports, exams, high parental involvement, zero tolerance discipline etc etc

Start a thread on MN about this and posters will queue up to tell you that they don't want it. They'll talk about stress and self esteem. They want school to be fun, fun, fun. They want their DC to come home at 3pm and play. They want to take them out for family holidays. They don't want to read all those dull books to their DC...

Honestly, they'd faint at my DC's school .

I certainly don't want daily sports, you're right there. And am not hog-whimperingly wild about exams at an early stage.

What I do want is a broad, liberal education with highly specialised maths and science teaching, a choice of MFL (and a dead one is quite useful to have in there too), a culture of learning and high expectations. And a decent music department for my younger child. Oh, and good English teaching. I've got that, actually. Which is not that uncommon round here.

The trouble is I'm not sure it's in private schools interests to remove the educational divide. If they succeeded, then why would anyone pay for education?

They could do a lot more round here to integrate with the local state schools - play in the same sports leagues, etc, but then if they lost to the state schools, parents might wonder what they were paying for.

The type of discipline accepted within the independent will also not be popular in the state, you only have to look on MN to see the complaints about 'shouty teachers' (plenty of that in the top public schools) including dc's prep. Respect for teachers which many sneer at here, adressing masters as "sir", standing up when a teacher enters etc, not all parents in tne state sector want these, but it all adds up to the calm harmonious environment in which private schools operate.

Shall we talk about competitive sport? Perhaps not. However despite all this, based stressed ideas will go a long way if implemented.

Also, if there is no evidence that various things work, that needs to be taken into account; surely what we want from education is the ability to think, question, and make decisions based on the available evidence? Not simply saying 'these things have always been done and therefore they are a Good Thing'.

I do think that there is a lot of smoke and mirrors around why private schools are successful and have a "calm and harmonious" atmosphere.

I suspect that selection and loads of dosh are the main factors.

The vast majority of children are educated within the state sector, I think it's about 93%

So fine if some parents are able to choose to opt out of state education through sending their children to private schools, just as others do through home education, but it should be seen as the minority experience that it is.

Unfortunately because many politicians and others in positions of influence have been to private schools you get people like Gove harping on about how state schools should be more like private ones, without acknowledging what a small minority of schools are independent, and how few children are educated there.

Although there may be some examples of good practice from these minority schools, educating 7% of our children, I would think there are more possibilities of learning from the good practice of the best state schools and passing this on to those that are struggling.

Also you have to remember the huge influence of children's home life. Ideally education needs to be seen as a home-school partnership because all the research shows that that is actually what it is, with the opportunities and support provided by families having a massive effect on children's expectations and achievements.
I think much more could be done in this area to help parents provide the best learning support and encouragement to their children when they are not at school.

These differences in parental support and the opportunities in the home environment are also a major reason for differences in the achievement of the best schools in both state and independent sectors, compared to those doing least well.