Anyone else disappointed with their state choices?

[DrTinkle]

It's all so bloody average around here. Schools seem to move from satisfactory to good, grades are average, bullying and low aspiration a problem. High performing kids do less well than they would at independents. No grammar schools in the area and the church school creams off most of the advantaged kids with parents who can commit to 7 years church or synagogue attendance. Everything is so oversubscribed and competitive around here, it's basically overpopulated.
We're utterly stuck living here for work and childcare reasons. I don't want DD who is bright and very capable to have the poor choices I had so faced with paying for 6 years of schooling which won't be easy.
Just a bit sad looking at Facebook friends kids going to grammars or well performing comps and thinking it just ain't fair. Anyone else care to vent?

State selectives are actually getting less money these days because funding is being moved towards those with higher proportions of SENs and those on free school meals. Our DS's school have had to make several teachers redundant and have had to cut the range of courses at GCSE and A level to balance the books.

As for all kids doing better in mixed ability comps, I have real life experience of the opposite. In my town, there was a secondary school and a grammar. It was the time when grammars were being closed down, and the grammar morphed into a comp two years before I moved there, the secondary winding down by no new intakes and their pupils moving through the years over 4 years until they'd all left. The grammar was building new blocks each year to cope with twice as many new intake classes each year. The whole town was conned into believing that everyone would get the grammar-quality education and no-one in my primary class took the 11+ to try to get into the grammar in the next town which survived. I saw the results of the social experiment from the inside, year by year as the ex-grammar pupils moved up and left. The ex-grammar teachers were having nervous breakdowns, the school went from being well kept and tidy to having broken windows, graffiti everywhere, broken desks and tables, bullying increased exponentially. Within a few years, word got round and parents started sitting their primary age kids for the 11+ again to get them into the grammar in the next town or started going to church to get them into the church schools instead. Inevitable result was even greater concentration on the unruly kids which made matters even worse. Now, 40 years on, it's struggling in special measures, with falling numbers and "parents who care" living within a mile or two of the school bus-ing their kids several miles in a fleet of at least 10 school buses across the county border to a better comp in the next county. And yet, I still remember all the lies of how merging the grammar would give everyone a grammar education - one of the biggest lies you could imagine!

Taxguru-i really don't think anecdotes from 40 years ago are relevant!

And if I had to choose between giving scarce resources to a grammar school or a secondary modern, then it seems to me to be a no brainier that the secondary modern gets more..........

maybe how is money going to pour into state schools because you close private ones?

Do you think parents will just gift the money they would have spent on fees? Do all those parents who 'could afford private school but chose state' do that now? Do they fuck .

If I were forced to send my DC to a state school, I might come all over a bit generous with the PTA cake sale, but hand over thousands of quid each year? Nah.

I don't agree that the most able students would get the same or better opportunities if selective education was abolished. I think some able students (those who live in the catchments of the best performing schools) would get the same or better. I think that those who live in the catchments of poorer schools would have worse choice, worse opportunities and a poorer education. At least with the current system the very able but poor child who lives within a catchment of only poorer schools can have the opportunity of gaining a place at an out of catchment grammar or a bursary to an academically selective private school. Abolishing all forms of selection is not going to mean a sudden influx of able children with interested parents into the comp which only achieves 26% A-C because many of those parents will do whatever they can to avoid having to send their children to such a school.

And if my dd went to her catchment school, as I don't have the income for her fees, it would not only be another pupil for central government to fund, I'd be making their jobs harder with frequent complaints both to them, governers and ofsted. It wouldn't actually achieve much more for dd than perhaps allowing her to sit alongside and self teach/ do work I've provided in primary covered subjects, as an alternative to repeating stuff she mastered years ago/ being bored shitless. It would give me at least an outlet for the anger I felt at their shit ethos and a vain hope it might change. And of course the time spent answering my frequent complaints would be less time for the average kids. Although it wouldn't take away from the below a pass no matter what achievers cos their needs are equally ignored.

Um, I could afford to send DC to a private school, and don't. Plenty of us could do and don't.

And do you give what you could spend in fees to your DC state school?

Why should maybebaby do that Shegot?

I don't think she should. I wouldn't.

It was just that she said if private schools closed and the money that was poured into them was poured into state schools, those schools would improve...and I wondered how and why this money would pour in.

I think the two points were proximate, but not part of the same point - if private school parents used state schools, that would make a difference to outcomes, and if state schools had the same kind of cash, that too would make a difference. Not, if private schools were closed, then state schools would get all their money.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Maybe!

As do many maybe and as would many more if they had the option of a place at one that met their childs needs.
Unless you are donating at least what it costs the state to educate your dc, let alone the private fee savings into the inadequate comps, I don't think you are in a position to slate the choices of others.
Unless you would honestly send your very able dc to a school where they would likely end in a top set with the worst teacher and a chain of supply ones, working years behind because it takes a good and permanent teacher to differentiate between the huge range of ability in the class, then I think it's hypocritical to say people should use them because you and your dc had the opportunity to attend state schools that met your needs. I don't have that option, short of either sleeping with the pope and getting an excemption for the church school, or a salary increase in the region of at least £6k a year so I can rent a smaller less pleasant house in catchment area for the nearest good school.
I really would love a state comprehensive system that met the needs of all. I didn't gamble with my dds happiness by showing her schools she may well not have been able to go for the sake of a nice building and expensive furnishings. I did it cos the state comprehensive system in my area isn't working for my child. Given the choice between sacrificing my ideal of state comprehensive and my childs education, it's a no brainer.

*exception no idea what my auto correct is writing!

Ah then I apologise.

I was wondering how it would happen. The difference between what the state spends per pupil and what parents pay in fee paying schools is around 10k a year for secondary (aprox I know both figures vary).

To find 10k for every pupil in secondary school, and 15k for those tranfering from private to state is a huge sum.

There's little point providing 'a grammar school education' to all children, because a grammar school style education just isn't suitable or accessible for many children.

If you provide a type of education to everybody, its what is known as comprehensive

But as you can see from this thread talkin many people do not feel that their local comprehensives are offering an education that they want for their DC.

The fact that it may be offering a perfectly decent education to someone else's is cold comfort.

Then they should become governors and change the schools
or get the government to stop the silly train crash academy system (that limits the rights of parent governors)
or volunteer in the school

but whining on here will not do any good.

not all the kids of MN posters are as above average as their parents would have you think.

And how has standing as a governor worked out for you talkin?

You were saying that you couldn't wait to get your DS out of that school and away from his peers. You have said on this thread that a large number of fellow parents don't give a shit.

The reality is that a parent can do very little in the face of policy and ideology of the SLT. Even as a governor. Nor can they do anything about resources or their fellow parents.

I volunteered in a primary school for years (my DC didn't even go there) and very little changed, in fact some things just got worse.

You were saying that you couldn't wait to get your DS out of that school and away from his peers.
Please clarify when I said that : you are a great one for putting words into the mouths of others.
My son has some lovely friends.

As a Governor for 6 years I am very proud of what I achieved thankyou.

"The fact that it may be offering a perfectly decent education to someone else's is cold comfort."

It could also be reassurance? In my experience the most vociferous anti comprehensive posters are basing their views on anecdote, TV, their own experience in the past or seeing some children smoking in the street. Or looking at, but not analysing, stats.

Or they are parents of children on the very far right of the bell curve, who think that their child's needs should take priority over all others.

Actually bertrand a lot of posters on this thread have DC in comps...so they know whereof they speak.

talkin I don't put words in anyone's mouths.

I am also blessed with a great memory (blame dyslexia).

You said that you would be very glad when your DS transfered to sixth form because of his peers (I didn't mention friends, they are not the same thing as peer group). I am not going to trawl your posts to link.

The fact that you don't recall saying it no doubt has far more to do with your lack of consistency. Some days you're dancing around MN telling everyone your DC's schools are the best in the northern hemisphere. At other times you're singularly dissatisfied.

Thanks for responses. I will go and visit the comps and indies and ask the relevant questions. Bit sad that the high achievers only sit 8 GCSEs at one of the comps. They offer triple science in the options, is that different from physics/chem/bio as separate subjects? I can't seem to find them listed. Sorry am old gimmer who sat o levels.

triple science does mean the three sciences taught separately, yep - as opposed to Dual Award (I think).

Also many people think that 8 or 9 GCSEs is better than more - you might find that fewer are prevalent at the private schools, as there's a school (ha!) of thought that too many is 'a bit state school', to quote one poster on MN!

(also, just a thought, but it might not be that they only sit 8 if you're looking at 'triple science' as just one - it's three GCSEs but will be listed as one option, so that would be 10 GCSES)