German expat questions value for money of top English private schools

[Bonsoir]

Article

I am German, my dd's are going to a top selective state school in the UK. I think GermanGymnasien are much better at delivering a broad knowledge base, but good British schools are better at developing the whole person.

at Herr Holle complaining about lack of social diversity...

I'd love to know how much 'social diversity' Herr Holle has provided his DCs with at home and in the holidays . He strikes me as a bit slow on the uptake if it has taken him up to his twins eighteenth birthday to realise that he does n't like the UK private school package. Perhaps he is disappointed because they did n't get offers at the desired. universities.
BTW they must have had a reasonably broad academic education as they did IB

Thanks DL. When you refer to a "broad knowledge base", are you talking about sixth form i.e. IB v. A Levels? Do you consider the EBacc broad enough?

Good grief he's a bit thick isn't he?
I'm not blessed with intelligence but faced with moving my own dd to a whole different type of school and life to which she is accustomed, I did my homework.
These types of school are as alien to the wc of the UK as they are to those coming from abroad and yet we know that only toffs go and they pretty much keep themselves to themselves.
Any idiot can work this out from a couple of google searches and one visit to the schools would tell you this.
He's in finance surely he'd look at the available data and conclude their weren't any scholarships etc.
What a ding bat.

Oh, no disrespect to toffs, each to their own.

I did a search on the prep school mentioned, The Hall, and they say "The majority of the boys will move on to a London day school" (my italics) so Mr Holle really went out of his way to choose this boarding school that he now decries. He's not coming out of this well.

Bonsoir , excellent. . Genuinely I would be interested. It may also be the case that they edited his words down to fit the column inches available and he has not been properly represented.

I'm not sure that it is fair to criticise a bilingual English-German family for choosing Sevenoaks, where MFL provision is far better than in most English schools and bilingual DC are supported in their other language. It's not an unusual choice is such circumstances.

DarklingJane - yes, I really should read the original article!

I think the ebacc is a good start, but specialisation at 16 is too early. In Germany pupils are required to study a language, German, science, maths, a humanity up until Abitur.

m.faz.net/aktuell/beruf-chance/campus/englands-top-internate-enttaeuschen-eton-harrow-co-13694908.html

Apparently a French teacher returned a French book he had borrowed of Holle because he couldn't read it. As a MFL teacher in the UK myself I really doubt that.

He also states that British qualifications are irrelevant to German pupils. No shit, Sherlock

I just read it too. He doesn't mince his words

Maybe the 'couldn't read it' was actually a joke to cover the 'did n't have time, not really interested in this particular book' but Herr H did n't quite catch on .

Quite possibly - Germans can be very literal

I know how much I would love it if a parent told me which German bookI really should read

To be fair Hannahause, his article was quite openly for his 'mates' back home - it was written for a German paper.

Actually I think it had a genuine purpose; it is increasingly common for better-off German families to send their children to English schools for at least a year, and they have no feel for what things are like here. When you add social media into the mix - which no parent of teenagers grew up with themselves, it's a different world.

There is no parallel in Germany for a super 'elite' boarding school - even where private schools do exist, they are much more low key in what they offer in extracurricular activities (I spent time in one). Also there was less of a 'cool gang' mentality - and definitely far, far less drug taking than at my English private school. That's not something that any number of open days would really reveal.

Anyway, why shouldn't he share his experiences? His opinions aren't invalidated by the fact he didn't take his children out. People make parenting mistakes; very few people are brave enough to admit it.

I analyse school systems for a
living, at the highest levels. And I think he's correct on many counts but should have bitten the bullet earlier and pulled out his kids in favour of sending them to good comprehensives (exactly what I have done with three of my own kids).

Many independent schools in the UK have utterly lost their way. You would all be horrified if you knew some of what I knew about their practices. They should be subject to FOI in my opinion, so it can all start to emerge.

Maybe he should advise his fellow compatriots not to go into a career where they earn more money than they have good sense. There doesn't appear to be a single thing he has done with his life to indicate that he cares one jot about social mobility or inequality, yet now he is suddenly bemoaning the lack of one and excess of the other. What an idiot, to have gained less advantage than he thought and now be bemoaning the fact his children never got to mix with the hoi polloi he deliberately avoided when he moved here. Never mind his kids, I'll bet his own friendship circle is exceedingly light on gas station attendants, in any event...

Interestingly as a personal observation, the Spanish do quite often send their DCs to UK boarding for a year or so, often at prep school stage but Germans (not talking about those living in the UK) seem to send their DCs for the whole duration of UK boarding senior education or at the least for sixth form. Somehow somewhere along the line the rich Germans decided this was 'a good thing' whilst the wealthier Spanish just focused on shorter term stays for improvement of their DCs' English.

He says he sent his sons to the Ambosius Blarer Gymnasium in Germany for Y 9. This is a private school, not a German state school. So I am now even more confused about what he is saying.

I realise he was writing for a different audience. I realise he was driven by particular family circumstances, as we all are.

But boy, it really strikes me that he has little self awareness. He can't see that he is the problem. He is the rich foreigner driving up prices making schools ever more elite and gilded.

The French do the short-term stay thing too - basically because time out of French education means that DC have to repeat a year when they return. And not doing the French bac is a problem (as in you aren't a real French person without the French bac).

The wealthy French do it by holiday activities or post school. As you say it is very rare for them to opt out of the bac and take the risk of the IB. However it was n't that long ago that taking an English degree would have been regarded as near suicide for prospects of re insertion back in France so perspectives do change.