Science in private school

[EPQTeacher]

Me and my wife have been debating about if it would be worth sending our children to a secondary private school in order for them to recieve the best STEM education available.

Both of them are very science oriented and we are a STEM-centred family. Parents of children who sent their children to private schools, how would you say their STEM (Science, Technology and Maths) education is compared to state schools?

Do you do/buy anything outside of the classroom to maximise their learning/attainment?

You need to compare the specific schools.

But I wouid add that generally, private schools have much better labs, with enough kit and space for pupils to do experiments themselves or in pairs (not in groups) and have a big enough budget so that there is a good supply of consumables.

I'd value that, because I think hands-on is so important

I've just had a look at DD's selective secondary £ school, which works to a fortnightly timetable:

Each of the three sciences gets 4 hours/fortnight (so they are in a science lab 6 hours a week). They study for Edexcel triple science GCSE or the double science GCSE. These lessons are streamed. The weaker students (about 10-15%) do the double science exam.

Students need to have at least a GCSE level 7 to progress to A level in any of the sciences. They study AQA Biology and OCR Chemistry and Physics.

Thinking back I think DD got the same time dedicated to science as your DD @Madcats.

I am a science teacher who has taught in both sectors. It is not sector dependent. The main question you should ask is if their science teachers are specialists. If a school hires a "science" teacher then that teacher will have a timetable mixed across all 3 sciences, and will just teach their specialism at A Level. You want a school that has dedicated Biology, Physics and Chemistry teachers.
Whether someone has a doctorate or not is completely unrelated to their teaching ability.
With regards to kit, again ask questions. They might have the 3D printers and video microscopes out on open day, but you need to ask searching questions about how they incorporate them into their curriculum. A lot of kit is rolled out for open day and rolled away again....

I have had children in both secttors and they have hd good, bad and excellent teachers in both sectors. One teacher in the private school was a highly qualified scientist but should have retired years ago due to his discriminatory attitudes towards SEN. Another science teacher in the state school refused a boy with dyslexia coloured overlays and a boy with dygraphia a laptop.

Other teachers in both sectors were poor at teaching outside their specialism. You do tend to get more subject specialist teachers in private schools eg a biology teacher teaching bioogy rather than a mix of all three. But then others in both sectors have been inspirational

are your kids girls or boys? there is some evidence that girls are more likely to choose & enjoy science/maths in single-sex schools, presumably because there is less pressure from boys to avoid it. So if going private gives your girls a single-sex option that is not available elsewhere, that might be worth considering.

how would you say their STEM (Science, Technology and Maths) education is compared to state schools?

This is an intractable question. Some public schools have brilliant provision for science, really serious science lab at University standard. Others, not so much.

Can you narrow it down a bit?

I think it’s hard to generalise but we’re using excellent state and private atm

State

• dc doing Further Maths, Maths, Physics and CS so in that area and has high target

Private

• I have noticed from year 7 the sciences are split into the three which I quite like

Thanks everyone for the insight, these points have given us a lot to think about.

For the parents who do send their children to private schools, how many of you pay for stuff outside of the school itself? Like private tuition, STEM boxes (like MEL or KiwiCo) or practical-based stuff like virtual labs?

Have we bought anything outside £ school?

I was going to say "no", but then I had a think about it. We've never had a tutor (though I bought some Bond 11+ books to get her through the entrance exam). There's an electronics kit in the house somewhere that was popular at Junior school.

I suppose we have used to spend many an hour at the Science Museum (not been back to London since lockdown) and have visited a few astronomy sites.

The local University does a STEM for schools science fair and we've attended a few events.

I had a rather stressful couple of weeks when the school encouraged us to do some "fun experiments using household ingredients" in the first lockdown".

I'll caveat this by mentioning that her Junior school had a science lab

For the parents who do send their children to private schools, how many of you pay for stuff outside of the school itself? Like private tuition, STEM boxes (like MEL or KiwiCo) or practical-based stuff like virtual labs?

I would feel pretty short changed if I was paying for private education and had to pay extra for a tutor, STEM boxes etc.

I paid for a maths tutor for state educated DD in year 11 because she had a useless maths teacher. It paid off because she achieved an A*.

No extras here in state or private

But we did very low prep moving from state to private anyway 11 plus - just past papers and one month online test for format

We deliberately chose a private secondary for DD because of its strong reputation for STEM - she's only Y7 so early days, but happy so far, and more than happy that she has subject specific teachers for the separate sciences.

I don't expect to pay for any extras to be honest! She's watching a free online Christmas lecture from Imperial suggested by the school.

@onemouseplace
Yes we always watch the Christmas lectures but off our own back don’t need to be prompted by a school but then we have lots of (state educated) doctors and scientists in our family so it’s a tradition!!!

Here we go for anyone interested!
www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/2021-going-viral-how-covid-changed-science-forever

[quote GratS]Here we go for anyone interested!
www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/2021-going-viral-how-covid-changed-science-forever[/quote]
I feel fairly confident that JvT will be an amazing host! Thank you for that link.

My kids went to a middling non selective private school so I can only speak of their experience as I have no experience of state schools.
My son didn't do that well at GCSEs, so obviously being at a private school is no guarantee of anything. My daughter did triple science and got 8s, even though math is her weakest subject (she got a 6), she didn't find that an issue for GCSE sciences. Her interest is in art however, but many of her friends went on to do science A levels. No outside tuition in science, though my daughter did in English and got 9s.
However it's not so much the teaching as the student. A good secondary state school combined with a hard working student would probably get as good results. Some schools have reputations for certain subject areas, so that's a starting point, but if your state schools are good they may not need to go private.

This is pretty easy imo. It's Grammar Schools. They by their nature tend to attract STEM leaning students and parents. You only need to take a look at their website to see the subject of choice their leavers choose to study at uni in any given year.

Private schools bar may be 5 or 6 schools and yes that includes the highly academic ones tend to have a better bit of balance.

My child in private prep school uses a fully equipped science laboratory every week, has specialist science teachers and had zoom calls with NASA during lockdown. Saturday school is pure engineering from 9-12.30. He's probably a year ahead expected level in maths.
That's year 4.

We pay for private for exactly that quality of STEM education.

In my experience it's well worth the money.

I feel fairly confident that JvT will be an amazing host! Thank you for that link

I don't think he's a host, he's the actual lecturer

(They'll have been filmed by now. I was lucky enough to take DC one year).

Would ask for and look at the specific schools’ stats on boys and girls STEM GCSEs and A level, the facilities and lab time.

Some schools may be behind on computer science, for example.

It’s worth asking for the sex split, too. One mixed private school we looked around had excellent numbers and results for Further Maths and Physics. But, when we asked, it was almost entirely boys. Apparently they had the same issue (but with girls dominating) for biology.

In contrast, my dd’s all girls private has around 70% of the year doing Maths A level, most years.

My ds's Requires Improvement comp taught to a high enough standard for DS to get two 8s and a 9 in Triple Science GCSE. They also got lots of people into med school, Cambridge, Warwick, Imperial, Bath and other very well regarded STEM courses at uni.

As it happens he loved STEM all the way through primary and up to GCSE and always said he wanted to do Astrophysics, but then chose to do History, German and Psychology A levels and is now doing MFL at uni. Just because they love it when younger, doesn't mean they will always love it, so don't choose STEM at the detriment of your kids being able to discover there are other paths in life too.