With Oxbridge taking less and less private school students, is it still worth it??

[SillySmart]

stats shows that the number of private educated students Oxbridge enrolled has dropped 1/3 in the past 5 years. Any thoughts?

There is no crisis in privileged state schools like Hills Road or my DC’s London grammar. Privileged schools are those full of parents who push their kids to do homework and read and eat breakfast and attend parents’ evenings etc. And support the teachers and discipline and homework.

The crisis is in schools with a deprived parent group, discipline issues, where teachers cannot teach and so leave. It really is not that difficult to understand. In poor areas, there is a crisis in many schools. In rich areas, many schools are doing well and the parent group picks up the slack with donations and supports at home and anyway, lots of information is available online. Teachers can teach a privileged motivated class with not many resources. It is when there is poverty and discipline issues and unmet SEN that teachers struggle or substantial overcrowding.

You mean state comprehensive schools, Marsha, because grammar schools to which Intergalactic is referring to are state schools.

@Intergalacticcatharsis

They are referring to financial crisis that affects all schools including state schools including Hills Road or your DC’s London grammar. All state schools are affected

Marsha means schools like the Charter in Dulwich or Judith Kerr or the Dulwich Hamlet primary schools. There are tons and tons of excellent state schools throughout London. It is all more about the parent group than anything else. And please note that it is not just determined by money. It is more about attitude to education. You could have a school full of Hong Kong and Chinese quasi refugees on FSM in a good comprehensive and they will probably do really well, even if they arrive with little English. That is what the statistics coming out of London are telling us. If the parents are educationally motivated and respect and support the teachers, that is more than half the job done.

It is related to the money. The best state schools are driving the housing prices in the catchment.

You could have a school full of Hong Kong and Chinese quasi refugees on FSM in a good comprehensive and they will probably do really well, even if they arrive with little English.

@Intergalacticcatharsis you won't find a school like this anywhere in UK. It is a false hypothesis.

According to DoE data, Chinese ethnicity on FSM out perform national average academically. However Chinese has the lowest percentage take up for FSM in the country.

Just reading through posts yes I mean state comps next to high house prices

We don’t have grammars close enough, we’re in London

On a slightly different note I think the potentially incoming VAT policy will exacerbate this

Funny, because I have been reading about an unprecedented number of London state schools having to close, because the population of school-aged children living in London has dropped dramatically, due to the exhorbitant cost of living in London and falling birth rates. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/study-reveals-full-scale-of-london-pupil-exodus-amid-school-closures/

This will hit secondary schools in the not so distant future, too.

There are also massive national shortages of science and maths teachers, so huge numbers of state educated children being taught STEM subjects by people who are totally unqualified to teach the subjects they are trying to teach at the level required.

No crisis in state schools? You are clearly a massive part of the problem if you think that, in your minuscule little bubble of privilege.

The top oversubscribed state schools will always have parents willing to pay to be close enough, regardless of any other schools with falling rolls

London is very competitive with that. I assume in the same way as many grammar schools

I don’t see why we can’t use the opportunity of falling rolls to bump up pp funding, and have smaller class sizes rather than try to bring students over from private

I would be up for a more positive take on how to deal with falling numbers

There are also massive national shortages of science and maths teachers, so huge numbers of state educated children being taught STEM subjects by people who are totally unqualified to teach the subjects they are trying to teach at the level required.

That’s interesting as one of the most frequently heard criticisms on mn of private schools is that they don’t have qualified teachers.
Also, the Labour Party has said that money raised from VAT on school fees will go towards more teachers.
If there is such a shortage of science and maths teachers, where are all these extra ones going to come from?

The data indicates that great teachers are the most important factor in a DC's educational achievement, followed by a supportive home environment and a peer group who all (or mostly) have high aspirations. Contrary to popular belief, smaller classes only come in fourth place – pupils do better in a large class with an excellent teacher than in a small class with a poor one.

So the idea of paying teachers better and trying to encourage more people into the profession, or to stay in the profession, is a sound one based on data. Along as they are good, of course!

Where did this study take place and does it say include the levels of SEN we have in 30 student classrooms?

A major draw for private is smaller class sizes, state could take away some USP by getting closer

@Barbadossunset - as with all professional careers, ever, recruitment is not a problem if you achieve the right balance of pay, working conditions and respect for the importance of the role to society, so as to make it an appealing option for high quality graduates who are also in demand elsewhere in the economy. It’s a balance the Tory party has been particularly piss poor at achieving. The crisis has been years in the making and did not happen without plenty of warnings. We have been stuck for too long with a party that was more interested in populist soundbites that endlessly criticised, demoralised and alienated the public sector than being honest that there is a difference between the chaotic funding cuts and simultaneous massive increases in workload that happened, and the “efficiency savings,” removals of “red tape” and wars on waste that were claimed.

Thank you for answering my question walkaround.

Which part of London? There are 19 grammar schools in London

SE

We briefly considered the ones a bit further out but the travel was too onerous

St Olave, Newstead Grammar are in South East London. Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar still may ne for some living in SE London

Yep 1 to 1.5 hours on public transport

Not worth it when we had other excellent options

I also didn't consider grammar for my son because the ones near us are single gender only. The same with most local selective private schools. I find single sex schools weird.

Yes you can board, it’s one of the few UK state boarding schools. Ideal if you live in the Falkland Islands and want to do A levels, you can stay in Falkland Lodge (that’s a bit of a hint as to who funded its construction).

@Walkaround - regarding London primary schools, the oversubscribed sought after ones are fine. In fact, people chase them even more.
Where I live there are 2 really successful church schools, one COE and one RC. They have just made their criteria less stringent, for example, COE used to be 3 years church attendance, has changed to “practising Christian”. The locals are delighted.
When my children were mid primary there was a huge baby boom and lots of schools expanded their entries from 2-4 forms, as an example. Kids were allocated primaries miles away and didn’t get any choices. Most eventually got places locally in year 2/3 etc some left London because of it.

That trend has simply reversed and the powers to be should have planned for it, they have the Census data and knew how many children are being born and leaving London. Just like they didn’t plan back with my children were younger. Very slow to get into gear in this country. Obviously a small school that cannot fill its roll is a sad state of affairs and the Government should plan appropriately and give the right bridging funding. A lot of the issues are to do with per pupil funding.

When there is a “crisis” in state and private education what actually happens is that the most sought after schools becoming even more so. This applies to pupils, parents and teachers. Teachers tend to also want to teach in thriving, successful schools and note that many state schools now also give priority to the children of teaching staff.

Even with SEN in a thriving privilieged school the parents of SEN children are more able to fight for the EHCPs, pay for a private diagnosis in time, are not in denial/scared of labels, want to get all the help they can get and work with the schools from the start. A lot of it is to do with faith in authorities and the system. A good head helps too.

The press always talk about the negative things.

One interesting post Covid phenomenon is the “independent learner” aspect @HillsR alludes to. Some children have really learnt to do that due to the pandemic. On the other hand, other children have really suffered with their mental health. I think it is important to get to the bottom of that and the reasons. It probably has to do with privilege but not in a money sense, perhaps support from home, parent mental health, that kind of thing. We know the most vulnerable have suffered but in some cases and in some good schools, the teachers have managed to protect them. Some actually thrived being in schools in small groups with more individual attention.

@RedFluffyPanda

I also wouldn't like my son to attend the school with GCSE results below national average.

I don't disagree with you but you do understand that it's pretty much a definition that half of schools will have results below the national average and, therefore, half of students will have to attend those schools, don't you?

This money isn't directly related to the funding crisis. The best state schools don't receive more from the government than bad ones. On the contrary, the best state schools tend to have fewer students on FSM so receive less funding from the government. They get better results because they have better resourced and more motivated parents to pick up the slack.