Why do people openly criticise decisions to send your kids to a private school?

[scotmum1977]

I sent my Son to a private school (Glasgow) last year for various reasons and it's working out really well. There is the cost but we just do without expensive holidays etc. I can't think of a better gift for my children than a good education. I was so surprised at how offended people get when they ask which school he attends. They think it's ok to criticise you openly and make bitchy comments here and there. Surely how you spend your own money is your own business. Anyone else have this experience?

When I was at school in Kent the grammars were superb and many families did a mixed portfolio of education for their children wifh those who passed the 11+ going to the grammars and those who didn't voing to the local private schools. There was less of a divide then with the grammar having doctors', solicitors, bus drivers', hairdressers', farm labourers' children.

Even then however when you look at the career outcomes those who didn't pass the 11+ did better than those who did with the private school boys doing stuff like chartered surveying, institute of marketing, etc, compared to the grammar boys whobwere pushed into the local banks as tellers or civil service admin.

That's what crystallised things in my mind. It's about expectation and confidence. I look at my dc and their friends and they exude confidence. The lovely young people with whom they went to primary school don't. It's hard to put one's finger on it but I think it can be summed up as presence. It isn't arrogance.

“It seems so sheltered. How do they cope in the real world?”
Let’s hope they don’t make unfounded generalised comments to suit their argument unlike those who are educated in the state sector! Or does it just make you feel better about your own choices to peddle this rubbish?

Which of the Kent grammars are crap? I can think of one that’s not brilliant in that it’s value add is poorer than it should be.....

My comment was restricted to the fact that there's a whole swathe of complacent, very dull grammars in Kent, with strikingly unexceptional results. Of that I'm utterly sure, yes. I'd rather my DC went to a reasonably good comp than to that sort of grammar. There are exceptions though, in Kent.

“It's hard to put one's finger on it but I think it can be summed up as presence”
Privilege does that for you.

Forget the value added for grammars and just look at the baseline results Bertrand. You know the names, you can do it on a one by one basis yourself.

Well thebreal world is very interesting. I mix with all sorts of people at work from security to high achieving professionals. My own department comprises admin and middle managers who have arrived there via different types of education. I get on very well with them and do not mention much about my personal life.

Loving the idea of 'presence'!

The fact is if state standards and expectations rose there would be better outcomes for all.

The biggest thief of achievement in state schools is poor behaviour and low level disruption. We need a system that enforces three strikes and out. Consequences act as an excellent deterrent. Until that happens those who pay for privilege will not diminish.

I'm Ideologically opposed to private education, but I wouldn't feel the need to share that with anyone unless they asked me directly. It grates that the assumption is envy, this is the case for some but not all. Most people are decent and trying to do the best by their kids, that isn't exclusive to private school parents.

I once checked Kent Grammars against my kids S London Comp and Dover, with a selective intake, did worse, for example. I know Diver has a high ratio of disadvantaged families, as does my postcode.

Privilege does that for you.

This is where I think myth is strongest. Sure, old Etonians and maybe some of those who attended one or two of the other major public schools develop an easy charm.

But the usual ‘presence’ that the majority of children who go to schools like Private Eye’s St Cakes have is priggishness.

But none of that has anything to do with the widespread failure of comprehensive education, sink schools and the loathsome behaviour of the left wing middle classes who spend money to get their children into sought after state schools and then bang on about privilege.

(None of that is meant to apply to anyone on this thread.)

“But none of that has anything to do with the widespread failure of comprehensive education”
What do you mean?

Governments, notably New Labour, have tried and tried to raise standards - academies, specialisms, free schools etc. We are told repeatedly that UK school leavers’ academic outcomes are slipping against worldwide indices.

Why the attempts at change? Why the slippage in attainment? All after 50 years of comprehensivisation.

What is secondary level success in the world of Bertrand?

“Privilege does that for you”
What particular “privilege” are you referring too? Money’s a large comfortable warm house holidays to exotic destinations lots of exposure to new and different experiences cultural capital or is it just the privilege of being educated in the independent sector that you dislike? I guess the last is easy to kick out at and aspire to get rid of.

So Bertrand you would like to get rid of great schools, just to further you're agenda.

Getting rid of great schools won't make the crap schools any better it will just fulfil an agenda.

I don't see a structural problem with the creation or continuation of secondary modern schools. The problem is the negative press centred around them from posters on here.

The continual battering given to modern schools from those who favour the societal melting pot of SEN -Oxbridge pupils. This being in one Socialist 'Class' ridden environment is the problem !

Forget the value added for grammars and just look at the baseline results

Goodbye, I know that progress8 and its ilk are imperfect measures - and as Talkin has already said on this thread / another, there is a statistical influence of %PP and %SEN on results, which mean that any measure is only really valid if applied to schools with similar intakes.

However, if you think about the quality of a school, and what it does with the intake it has, are raw results or value added the better measure of the SCHOOL, rather than the INTAKE?

Take selective school A, with 95% of its intake high attaining at the end of KS2. Then take comprehensive school B, with 15% of its intake high attaining at the end of KS2.

If School A has higher raw results than school B, that is surely not a measure of the quality of the school, rather a measure of its different intake? It is only when you start looking at a value added measure that you can start to get any kind of grip - however imperfect current measures are - of the balance between to what degree the raw results are due to intake, and how much to the school.

You would expect average grammar schools in Kent - accepting 25% of the pupil population - to have lower raw results than super-selective grammars in partially selective counties which only accept a couple of %. that doesn't mean that the schools are worse, just that they have different intakes.

It's like the common [but really hard to eradicate] fallacy that grammar schools are 'better' than true comprehensives 'because their exam results are better'. Anyone thinking about it for a moment would realise how ludicrous that statement is, but you hear it all the time.

When I say “privilege does it for you” what I mean is that confidence and “presence” as a previous poster put it comes from privilege, not necessarily from a particular type of school.

And Bertrand could I tempt you into offering an opinion on those who move house, engage tutors or otherwise spend lots of money on getting the best for themselves out of the comprehensive system?

Plus a further opinion on those middle class system-manipulators who then attack private schooling?

Oops, should have said “who then attack private schooling and grammars”.

I have said before in similar threads that I believe that an admissions process which balanced SEN and pupils from deprived backgrounds across all schools in a wider area would be a huge improvement, in particular in eliminating at least some of the 'perceived difference in quality ' between schools that is in fact due to difference in intake.

In this model, i would see a LA look at the %SEN and the %PP for a particular intake year, and allocate pupils such that every school has the same % of these pupils. In true comprehensive areas, this would mean different effective catchments for different groups, while in selective areas or areas with faith criteria, it would mean lower pass marks for PP / SEN children and looser rules for faith observance for these groups.

It would be really interesting to see whether, with more balanced intakes, the same schools 'came out top', or whether actually the schools historically regarded as 'worst due to their intakes' actually showed their true quality.

Ruffina-if I had my way, school admission would be by lottery. I know there are problems with that but not beyond the wit of man to resolve.

@BertrandRussell that would mean siblings would be at different schools - a logistical nightmare

As I said- it needs to be planned. Many schools no longer have a a sibling criterion now. Maybe you could choose to send siblings to the same school or put them back in the pot.

At secondary? No, not really. Surely virtually all secondary school pupils get to / from school independently?