Please can we have a non-fighty thread about the advantages/disadvantages of independent schools....

[insertfeistynicknamehere]

I attended one myself but it was a long time ago.

Been looking round and keep seeing references to "dodgy independents"
what are these?

Where we live there are excellent state schools but I have no experience of this at secondary, it seems quite scary - DC attend a state village one-form entry school

My oldest is only 8 so it's a fair way off yet but still...
Promise am not a goady fucker btw.

If you go to a day school that is local, you are in your community.

Not all children go to the same schools, particularly in cities, but still manage to hang out together outside school as local friends.

Whether the parents pay for schooling through their taxes, or through their taxes plus the fees to use a non-state school, may well be a lesser factor depending on your local geography. Especially before the secondary years, when it wouldn't occur to children to discriminate by which school (unless someone had told them to).

A local private school is part of a local community, it may be the 'wrong' sort of community for some but it still constitutes a portion of the mix.

A private boarding school or distant day school is probably more akin to an expat community for the DC. That means less local connections for the family but perhaps (depending on private school) a more exciting, international as well as stimulating (intellectually or access to activities) community for the DCs, especially if their local community is not a metropolis. Many teenagers yearn for something different to the confines of their local community even if it gives them that cosy stable feeling.

If you have enough spare income to be able to consider private education (especially if it is going to be very tight) then it is also worth considering how you could spend that extra money to the benefit of your children within the state system. Maybe state + extras + less financial pressure could make for as happy and fulfilling life for the whole family as private?
But it really does depend on which schools and what child.

tick I guess it depends on the family's values and priorities?

TBH the majority of The families at DC's schools had enough cash for fees plus enriching activities plus holidays yadda yadda.

But the families I know of who really push the bots out for fees ( usually immigrant families) are admirable I feel. Their commitment to education is astonishing ( though I don't know if I could be that parent ).

Of course, but then I was only making a suggestion for consideration and agreeing with all the pps who said it depends on individual circumstances.

I've just chosen a secondary school for my dd. We chose a state school. I'm yet to hear whether we have a place yet.

Re- I keep reading a pro of private education is that's it's 'cool to be clever'. I went a state school in the 80's (yes, before even OFSTED was invented!) and it was always 'cool' to be clever. Also, it was virtually expected that we would all go onto University (or college at least). I had a great school career. Full of fun, inspiring teachers and a few awful ones! I mixed with all kinds of children and families. Some went onto to be well known Celebrities, sportsmen and regarded academics and others went to prison!

I guess, what I'm saying is I'm not scared of state secondary school. I'm anxious about my dd started somewhere new and I'm hoping I'll not have many problems.

I just wanted to address this constant idea that all state schools have a culture where it's not the done thing to work hard.

I also wanted to add that my is rents would have had no idea if I went to a 'good' state school or a 'bad' one. These were the days before league tables etc and everyone just went to their nearest school (mainly). I think this is a lost age, but I do think it helped the school I went to, as there were such a wide range of abilities.

'Is rents' ?? *parents obviously.

harry very few DC went to university in the 80s. You must have attended a very unusual school if all the pupils were expected to go!

Today, more DC do go but I think some schools definitely have an issue with low expectation (not all universities are created equally).
And it's very tough to row against that tide.

That's one if the reasons that offers can be contextualised by university; to recognise the problems some highly able students face in state schools.

I always start contributing to these threads thinking 'yeah, I've got a view'

Then realise by about post 100 that I really really don't care that much

Which is probably why I opt for the cheap and easy option of state

Eric, it wasn't an unusual school. It was a standard company in Wales. We weren't expected to go but it was assumed we would go at least to uni or college and we were supported to do this. Of course not everyone actually went. But hell of a lot of us did.

It just wanted to challenge this idea that at secondary school there's no ambition or culture of going to university.

I meant Comp not company of course!

"bertrand you are very wrong about internships."

Oh, internships! I thought Greenleave meant volunteering for the benefit of others.

Generally the problem with private schools is not for the local community or the parents its for the number of (a) intelligent, (b) children from aspirational families for other children in a comprehensive to be around. So social networks and aspirations of other children in a comprehensive can suffer.

Obviously some bright and aspirational children remain at the comprehensive because given humans have sexual reproduction some low IQ parents will have high IQ children, some high IQ families will have divorce, illness and unable to afford private, some high IQ families will choose jobs/lifestyles that don't pay particularly well, some high IQ families will be ideologically opposed to private education.

Private schools (and grammar schools) are dividing the country, reducing opportunities, wasting talent and reducing quality of life in general. If you pay for private schooling your are actively reducing life chances for other children. Much better is to use your extra cash to give donations to labour, liberal democrats or greens and then we get a government that supports state education and aspirations for everybody.

bertrand doing an internship ie working for free, for a charity, cultural organisation, NGO etc does benefit others.

Possibly more people and those more in need than say a scout master?

Oh, that offensive little argument now, is it? That it is so much more beneficial to help build a school hut in Africa over the summer than to spend thirty years volunteering with young people in your local community. They are two different things, they have no need whatsoever to be mutually exclusive and there is no need to denigrate one to justify the other!

harry
I went to a Comp in Wales in the 80's and there was very little expectation that people went to university. Very few of my classmates parents (including my own) had been to university. I swapped to a different school for 6th form that was in a more middle class area and the expectations and quality of the teaching was higher. You really can't generalise.

That is why a number of us are saying that the OP has to look at the specific options available to her. Some state schools are fantastic and some private schools are not.

To drill down a bit further. If you have a bright confident able child then class size isn't such an issue. If you have 2 DC like mine bright but with mild dyslexia / dysgraphia then small class sizes make a real difference. (As far as I remember that is what the class size research from the US shows especially for the earlier years).

round no one mentioned those hut building holidays.

I am taking about proper internships.

And since we're talking about 18 year olds i can't see where 30 years comes into it!

I just mentioned Scouting on another thread-I suspect that's why it's come up here.

But at all the NGOs desperate for 18 year olds to find work for help them!

bertrand you are showing your ignorance.

Charities, cultural organisations, NGOs, need people to work for free.

So do the scouts. Eighteen year olds don't tend to be scout masters, however, EricNorthmanSucks - they tend to be older, more experienced people. So I don't see where they come into it!!! Perhaps you could explain what you are actually envisaging?

Also, training to be a scout master and only doing it for a very short period of time is a bit of a waste of the investment by the scouting association - it would be all training and not enough time to learn to be useful before you moved on, so far more beneficial to you than anyone else. It is a fairly long term commitment. Hence the thirty years comment.

You do realise scout masters are trained, unpaid volunteers, don't you?

I mentioned on a different thread that in a particular set of circumstances, an older teenager volunteering to help with scouts might be mutually beneficial. Which is true- and said teenager could volunteer at minimal cost to the organisation. Not sure where becoming a Scout leader came from!

Nor here, Bertrand! Young Leaders and other volunteers are very useful to scout groups.