Private School Worth It?

[beantltc]

Would like to know an adult's opinion on private school and if you think it is worth the money compared to normal schools.

Kettlepotblack - I do agree with you, though, that state schools are able to offer less and less due to chronic underfunding and inappropriate interference by this government in particular. This does not impact so much on those who can afford to plug the gaps, but it seriously penalises those who can't afford to make up for any deficits and who thus miss out altogether. For these people, private school is not worth it, it is simply out of the question, along with the music lessons, sports clubs, theatre groups, dance lessons, extra tuition, etc, etc.

“! How can anyone argue that state schools are not selecting via house price”

Not sure anyone is.

Only it’s not an argument which you can use to justify the existence of private svhools as a ‘good thing’.

They’re both shit.

But private schools are shittier.

A small number of state schools have a tiny number of genuinely disadvantaged low achieving children when compared to the number of these children at a national or county level. But almost ALL non selective state schools will have a representative number of these children who live in catchment.

To contrast: 100% of private schools entirely exclude low achieving poor children - the ones most in need of the small classes, individual attention and wrap around pastoral support that private schools boast that they offer.

In other words there is a whole cohort of children who are entirely excluded from every single private school in the country (with the exception of children in private special schools with an EHCP).

And don’t get me started on the private school near me that sells itself to parents on the basis of how successful it is at getting its pupils into super selective grammars. 😳

Disgraceful.

Hard to say whether private is worth it - no one can know what the alternative would have been.

I do think though that private parents are paying for more than just grades so I'm not sure what the relevance of all those studies is. It seems totally logical to me that a child with straight As from an average comp might be naturally more gifted and more motivated than someone achieving the same grades with the benefit of the best education money can buy. Might be. I suspect many of these figures are also skewed by highly selective grammar schools that count as 'state'.

Equality of opportunity is a good concept but far from apparent in the State sector which after all educates the vast majority of children. I think it is easy to pin the blame on private schools but it seems to me there is a lot more going on then that.

I think people have an exaggerated idea of the connections and access to jobs you get from private schools in concrete terms - at least in professional jobs. Although I'm sure it happens. I think it's more about cultural expectations and access to ideas.

stateschoolparent

Thank you for your very civil responses. It is refreshing to be able to have a discussion on this forum rather than a screed. I am familiar with most of the studies you referred to and will attempt to address them one by one as time permits. I note that all your references compare public and private schools; I would be grateful if you could provide any that compare comprehensive and selective schools.

Since you specified 2011 for the OECD/PISA analysis, I will assume you are referring to the short handout and not the underlying 2009 PISA report.

The OECD and PISA's primary concern and metrics deal with the performance of entire educational systems, not individual students. Their primary conclusion was indeed "Countries with a larger share of private schools do not perform better in PISA." Their other headline was "Students who attend private schools tend to perform significantly better in the PISA assessments than students who attend public schools; but students in public schools in a similar socio-economic context as private schools tend to do equally well." (my emphasis) I suspect the difference in our interpretations of the latter conclusion is the importance and interpretation we attach to the caveat around it.

For example, "... after taking into account the socio-economic backgrounds of the students who attend these schools, and the related material and instructional advantages that accrue to the schools, the small performance difference between public and private school students that remains is associated with higher levels of autonomy over curricula and resources among private schools." But autonomy is an intrinsic difference between the state and independent schools in the UK!

Or, "... public schools with comparable student populations offer the same advantages, even if the average public school, with a more diverse student body, generally does not." But there are few state schools in the UK with socio-economically comparable student populations to independent schools!

"The bottom line: Private schools – and public schools with student populations from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds – benefit the individual students who attend them; but there is no evidence to suggest that private schools help to raise the level of performance of the school system, as a whole." (again, my emphasis)

For these reasons, I don't regard that this analysis supports the notion that independent schools add zero value over state schools in the UK.

stateschoolparent

one study looking at a sample of middle-class kids at inner-city comps found they "performed brilliantly", and 15% of them went to Oxbridge.

Looked up this study, and it refers to only 68 young people, chosen who knows how (not described in the paper), with 10 more girls than boys. The study is "qualitative", so does not pretend to be representative of any sort of population in the way that a properly constructed quantitative piece of research would be. (To be fair, the inappropriate citing of it by Owen Jones in a context it was not intended for is typical of the Guardian's often ignorant and biased approach to educational research.)

As for research from other countries, there is too much difference in the systems for their results to be applicable here. I am not claiming, by the way, that class is not the major predictor of educational success - but that's not the same as saying that the quality of the school someone attends has no effect on their educational achievements and on the quality of their education as a whole.

Private schools vary in quality, just as state schools do. It's possible that the sector as a whole does no better than the state sector as a whole - but none of the studies you have cited demonstrates that, for the reasons I and other posters have given. But the most important point is, for individual parents making choices for their children, the quality of the whole sector is irrelevant - what matters are the specific (limited) choices they have in front of them.

A small number of state schools have a tiny number of genuinely disadvantaged low achieving children when compared to the number of these children at a national or county level. But almost ALL non selective state schools will have a representative number of these children who live in catchment.

I don’t think it’s as small a number as you think. There are primary schools up and down the country with 1% or less FSM and secondaries with

The state primary schools closest to me are listed as 0%, 0.4% and 1.4% FSMs! How can anyone argue that state schools are not selecting via house price.
What is the FSM percentage for the LEA....
if the schools are in kilter with it, they are not selecting per se

Thank you, LookingforSpace, for your honest and thought-provoking posts. You've hit the nail on the head. It's the children without motivated / interested parents, or who are on the bread-line that fall between cracks. I'm not sure how this will ever be fixed. As someone once said; if you don't fight for your children, no-one else will. Sadly, that seems to be true.

We had the choice between a move close to an outstanding comprehensive with fabulous facilities but a massive increase in commuting costs, stamp duty, less time with the children; so chose to stay put and send both DC private instead. Probably would have cost the same overall, the only thing we lost by staying is the moral high ground 😉.

@TalkinPeece, LEA % is 13%! We are in Trafford which is Greater Manchester. GM is made up of 10 smaller LAs. GM as a whole is 22% compared to national ave of 18%. Manchester itself is 32%, Salford is 27% and Tameside 23%. Trafford and Stockport are much lower at 13&14%.

If I remember rightly, Trafford is not known for its Comp schools ...
are those primary schools feeding into Comp schools ?
Selective State schools will, of course select - and wealth is a proxy for ability to jump through hoops.

In non selective areas are the distortions as extreme ?

Lookingforspace. It is very sad that the school you are talking about has become so super selective ! Even as recently as 10 years ago girls who would have been in the top 30% of the ability range would have got in.

The school is a victim of its own success and of the limited availability of grammar places globally .

On a positive note because of the school and limited number of availabilities of entry to the other girls/boys grammars round the corner, Trafford effectively operates an 'oxymoron' of an education system. This being able to offer fully comprehensives schools in a wholly selective authority !

I notice the newly 'majority' Labour coalition in Trafford did not make any negative statements about grammar schools.

stateschoolparent

The conclusion of the Statistics Canada study you referred to was actually "At age 15, private high school students scored significantly higher than did public high school students on reading, mathematics, and science assessments, and by age 23, had higher levels of educational attainment. However, the students who attended private high schools were more likely to have socio-economic characteristics positively associated with academic success, and to have school peers with university-educated parents. .... Two factors consistently accounted for the differences in academic outcomes between public and private sector students: socio-economic characteristics and peers." (my emphasis)

In their decomposition of the size of the various effects driving the differential results, socio-economic factors were more significant than peer effects, but peer effects still accounted for ~25% of the difference in most metrics. Few state schools in the UK will provide a similar peer group to independent schools - certainly very few comprehensives.

Both the OECD/PISA analysis and this Statistics Canada study conclude that there is little difference between public and private school outcomes once you account for the socio-economic position of students and of their peer groups. That conclusion can support the idea that the quality of teaching and resources in private schools doesn't confer many advantages over state schools. However, it cannot support the idea that private school attendance per se does not confer advantages over state school attendance because the difference in socio-economic characteristics of the peer group is effectively intrinsic to the school.

No experience of private primary but just thought I’d chip in with what we have found in our very local experience of private and state. I never thought I would send my kids to a private school but then I never expected that they would benefit from it. I was a motivated, organised, self disciplined, enthusiastic child who did well in the state system. If you have kids like this then of course you will think private education is a waste of money and/or morally suspect. Good for you.

We have put 3 DC who are bright but have dyslexic/ASD/ADD difficulties (in different combinations) through two good comps. They were always going to get 5 GCSEs A-C and it’s become increasingly difficult to get them support. The schools’ support staff has been slashed.

The DC really suffered in all sorts of ways. Did fine on paper but were more unhappy than they needed to be. Lots of stress and some school refusal. Utterly miserable.

DC4 at local private. Having much better experience than their siblings. If they get the same GCSEs as they would have got at comp, that’s fine by me.

We have been able to cut down on the extra curricular stuff and stop tutoring. We have more family time as they do so much at school.

The stuff that is better IMHO includes:

Quieter classes - easier to concentrate (DC had to work in corridor at primary due to noise being so distracting/aversive)

More sport - DC not into team sport but does exercise 3 times a week. School has elite sport but the not sporty types get to do loads of exercise and there is a huge choice of activities. DC is fit and active.

Better healthcare - DC goes to nurse who will assess and treat (eg ibuprofen and strepsil) and send back to class if OK. Bliss. Less school and work missed.

Better food with quieter lunch times. Staff eat in canteen so all much calmer and DC always gets a good meal.

excellent singing music/art/drama which DC loves. Proper choral singing 3 times a week. (My other DC did music up to grade 8 and diploma level but where we live it was hard to find serious singing).

Better resources - small things can make a big difference, for example, a maths textbook in school and another to leave at home. Great for kids with organisational issues.

Offering assessment - phone call from school “Can we assess DC for dyslexia?” That’s a first for us.

It just depends on the child.

We have two mediocre comps to choose from and one non-selective independent.

The oldest child hated the social teenage scene big comp and being miserable all day suppressed his learning. He asked to change schools. He loves his little indy because he can be himself, and his attainment and love of learning are soaring. He is a happy kid. Sure, he could have trudged through and overcome but I like my happy kid.

Our other son is very able academically. He is a lad. He wants to bum around the big comp and play football. He achieves just fine, isn't challenged at all, and is a happy kid.

I'm glad we can settle them both where they feel they fit.

The primaries feed into both. Lots of parents and kids opt for the reasonably high achieving comprehensive close by. GCSE A*-C inc E&M is around 75%.

Stockport is the other close by LA with lower levels of FSM. But Stockport is very polarised where you’ll find like here, virtually 0% in quite a few primaries in South Stockport whereas N Stockport is fairly deprived. Stockport has something like 12% using the private sector though so results at their state secondaries suffer from that.

@letstalk2000, yes, it has gone from being the local girls’ grammar to being the one that all the highest achieving girls within a 10mile radius want.
However, it isn’t technically a super selective because it still operates strictly on a catchment basis so the furthest place offered will be about 6miles away. But of course, that 6mile radius is stuffed full of high achieving girls from very privileged homes. The boys grammar take something like the top 20% regardless of where they live and the rest are the highest achieving local boys. Interestingly, despite being more selective based on ability, the girls’ school far out performs them being one of the highest achieving in the country.

Another factor is whether you want a mixed schools. All the private schools round here are separate girls or boys which is enough to make me think twice. A Co ed private school would be more attractive to me, but without that option, I'd go state. I do agree it depends if you DC is naturally academic and motivated.

One of the reasons we considered paying was to avoid single sex education especially for DS. Luckily, he managed to get a place at an excellent co-ed grammar nearby.
It just shows that people pay for different things. We have friends who opted to pay to avoid the church school they were allocated.

Yes, people pay for very different things although some tend to be commonly desired - relatively quiet classes so children can concentrate and hopefully a fairly academic atmosphere with a cohort who will mostly go to good universities (as a good few teenagers copy their peers and ignore their parents). I liked single sex schooling which I agree is not for everyone. It was not top of my list however. There are lots of reasons I paid fees (I say pay as I started in 1987 and stopped last year when the twins left for university so I've had a veyr long period of school fee paying and now morphed into university fee paying......) Classical music was important for us too and would not be for a lot of other people so it just varies. Some people want children in total freedom like Summhill with no obligation to attend classes or they want boarding from age 7 or they want a specialist music school like Chetham's.

Dd summed up for us why we are paying for her to go Private rather than the local comp
I heard her speaking to a friend at the local Comp ( which has been rated inadequate)
Friend “ I’m not going to work hard any more, I don’t want to be one of the smart kids, I want to be one of the cool kids”
Dd “ they’re the same thing at my school “

Disclaimer - only necessarily applies to the 2 schools on offer to us!

Friend “ I’m not going to work hard any more, I don’t want to be one of the smart kids, I want to be one of the cool kids”
Dd “ they’re the same thing at my school “

Absolutely. Anyone who knows anything about adolescent psychology knows that peer group influences are incredibly important. That's the reason why aspirational non-selective state schools like Michaela put such an enormous emphasis on creating a culture where all the pupils "buy in" to the importance of good behaviour, hard work, and acquiring lots of academic knowledge and skills.

Whatever people may think about the way they go about it, it's difficult to deny the importance of such a culture when it comes to helping all children achieve their potential. And as I said above, the ceiling effect and the prevalence cheating on coursework (until this year) means that many children who have got A*s at GCSEs (particularly in humanities subjects) may well have not learned enough to allow them to achieve their potential at A level and university.

I work in a private school and I know many privately educated people. I used to work state and my DC attend state primaries at the moment.

The teaching is not better - the teachers are however less monitored whilst still expected to get good results. They are more trusted therefore less stressed. Their classes are smaller so they have more time for individuals and chasing up their work.

Many students do not come out with grades wildly different from what they would have got in a good state school (in my opinion). What they do get, however, is confidence and more importantly contacts. Their parents have contacts, their friends parents have contacts and the school had well known alumni that link to the school.
In my school we have the child of famous restaurant chain owners and people well known in their fields who give their children's friends leg ups all the time. I used to believe it wasn't really true but having worked there a few years now I have seen it a number of times!

So, I think on balance you would help your child in many ways but their grades may not be much higher.

Tomhazard, pls could you explain something. Why would a "leg-up" be of benefit at secondary school? Surely it's during / after uni that it would be of benefit? Also, I thought companies today (well, mine at least) were / had to be fairer when selecting for work experience? I thought the days of the CEO getting 2 weeks work experience did his 'super-confident, precocious privately educated nephew' were over??

Itsonlyhearsay, I think it would be naive to think the 'leg up' doesn't happen any more. If you are a private dentist, for example, it's easier to offer a couple of weeks experience to a child you already know the parents of from school or who may have been in your child's class (so you know the child themselves).

I'm not sure it's true that bright pupils get great grades wherever they go. I didn't. I got lousy grades at my comp and it wasn't until I met a boy from a private shcool with higher aspirations in life, who suggested I was really clever and could do something about it, that I got a private tutor and ended up passing Oxbridge. If I'd not met him I'd not even have thought of applying. At my comp, aspirations were really low. Teachers lacked confidence, and pupils scorned academic achievement. I fell in line with that to avoid being bullied. That's why my DC go to a private school now. I found that pride in low attainment so demoralising as a teenager and it held me back for decades. I know not all state schools have this ethos, and that if parents are on board then pupils will thrive. But even though my parents were partly on board, I didn't thrive academically. It's more complex than the myth that bright children succeed wherever they go.