I don't have kids but will tell you my sister's case. For years she has said, "I don't believe in private schools". This despite her won education at private school herself. Her hsuband felt the same way. She has now had 2 kids. Theldest one has just started nursery. I was round there recently and saw brochures for private schools. I asked her about it. Her reply? "Yeah I know". Clearly embarrassed by her turnabout, obviouslky I had to press her on it. She said, "I look at schools now and I just need to give my kids the best start I can. That means private school". She cited the confidence it would give them, the connections, the sports and activities.
All my kids have gone to State schools, as I feel strongly that the more kids are taken out of the state system, the lower the standards will drop, which is unfair on those who couldn't possibly afford private education.
I have, however, had to employ private tutors for my eldest, for Maths and Chemistry A levels, as she felt that the teachers were pretty useless in those subjects and was very worried about how this was affecting her learning. It is a compromise and we could do without paying out £50 a week, but I didn't feel that I could jeopardise her chances, just for my own principles.
Lizzie thank you very much. It's interesting that you have also mentioned a solution for outside education for those who attend state schools. Much appreciated.
Originally posted by BizzyC: Lizzie thank you very much. It's interesting that you have also mentioned a solution for outside education for those who attend state schools. Much appreciated.
That's OK.
The thing that worries me most, is that her grades will be used by the school as evidence of how well they are doing, whereas the reality is that they have several useless teachers, who are in the wrong jobs. Her Maths tutor is currently teaching 9 out of 11 kids in one A level class!
The thing that worries me most, is that her grades will be used by the school as evidence of how well they are doing, whereas the reality is that they have several useless teachers, who are in the wrong jobs. Her Maths tutor is currently teaching 9 out of 11 kids in one A level class!
Ah yes I see. I suppose there isn't much to be done other than report the teachers, although I know from personal experience that this often does very little. Other than that, just tell everyone you know that it was your daughter who put in the work!
All my three children have gone to a state school and have received what I think has been a reasonably good education.
Would I send my children to a private school if I could afford it? No, because I don’t believe that the children of the rich deserve a better education than the children of the less well off.
Originally posted by Bizzie Lizzie: All my kids have gone to State schools, as I feel strongly that the more kids are taken out of the state system, the lower the standards will drop, which is unfair on those who couldn't possibly afford private education.
I have, however, had to employ private tutors for my eldest, for Maths and Chemistry A levels, as she felt that the teachers were pretty useless in those subjects and was very worried about how this was affecting her learning. It is a compromise and we could do without paying out £50 a week, but I didn't feel that I could jeopardise her chances, just for my own principles.
I agree, Lizzy...
Surely, by having private schools, and only people that can afford to pay can attend, that is only widening the barrier between classes within the country, when we should be working to close it? It is only adding to the problem of youth culture as we see it today... because some children aren't able to have access to this higher level of education, they feel that they aren't as important... so no wonder they give up and go off the rails...
It is not always the brighter children that go to private schools, either... often, there are some that have to go to state school, where their potential is left unfulfilled, due to the environment in which they are having to study...
I was fortunate to get into a grammar school, but I'm not sure how I feel about these... and it's a different argument again...
(I appreciate I have made some exaggerations and generalisations here... but to go too much into the specifics would take forever...)
Originally posted by Gand: All my three children have gone to a state school and have received what I think has been a reasonably good education.
Would I send my children to a private school if I could afford it? No, because I don’t believe that the children of the rich deserve a better education than the children of the less well off.
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Same here .......my three did Ok at state education. Like a poster said earlier - the more kids that are put into private ed the more standards will drop. It is the wealthy (and often more educated) parents that complain and influence state schools to do better. Also the Parent Friends associations who contribute a lot to schools suffer if the 'influential, weathy' vacate in droves.
Send my kid to a special school as thats the only way the LEA would fund her education. Government inclusion policy is not worth the paper it is written on.
I yet do not have any children but my partner is an assistant head teacher at a state school so I may have an interesting vantage point to offer.
Where I live there has been a dramatic increase in the number of "academy" schools, which as I am sure you are aware are usually closely related to faith based education.
The catchment area for my partners school covers some quite deprived areas, actually some of the most deprived areas in the country.
This I have very real concerns about, mainly because being taught what to think rather than how to think I find reprehensible. I also feel that allowing faith based education to take over the responsibility for educating some of the most disadvantaged children in the country akin to the stratification we endured up to the nineteen sixties where education was thought "unnecessary" for "certain classes" and involving as often is the case a reinforcement of the status quo.
I particularly object when these schools specifically insist on types of uniform, which are ridiculously expensive as a deliberate means of forcing parents from low-income families to go elsewhere.
All staff and local authority officials are aware of this going on, but turn a blind eye for the sake of political expediency.
Therefore, the issue is a little more complex than it first appears, "other" methods can be used to exclude children who do not fit the desirable “profile” i.e. they are poor and therefore are thought to and often do contain a disproportionate number of children with social and emotional problems.
The ones that do "sneak" under the wire so to speak, are excluded promptly in what is referred to as a "managed move" an expulsion, which involves a trade of pupils who are difficult. Moving "problems" = people around like so much dirty linen with well meaning professionals by the score involved so as to dot every I and cross every T and maintain the "appearance" of all that could be done being “seen” to be done.
It is finding ways around legislation, which allows private or semi private schools to exclude anyway regardless of the political "window dressing" which actually serves to appease dissenters and beguile the majority with the belief that political correctness is so rampant that this could never happen.
Political correctness is no more than a reverse Psychological device to immobilise political objections to an increasingly “traditional” and elitist society.
Originally posted by Deus ex machina: There are things to be said for both state and private education and things that are wrong with both too.
I am not biased to either sector entirely myself. If you have the time I would be very interested in hearing your points.
If not, thank you for showing the idea that many people have conflicting views about the two.
The independent sector has the benefits of not having its apron strings tied to the ridiculous vagueries of pseudo-academic notions on how best to improve educational and behaioural standards from failed classroom practitioners and second rate psychologists. Their 'conclusions' are then spoon fed to the government who then hand it down by dictat to schools through their poodles and monitored by their Stasi-esque Ofsted agency. Those who receive an independent education also have the benefit of naming their school in their UCAS entry and it is well known that in academic circles that this is considered equivalent to another A level. Independent schools are also free of the restraints of the National Curriculum which treat everyone the same and dictates that all children will study all the same subjects up til the end of KS3. The negatives of the independent education sector are for the most part social and refer to the detriment of others i.e. favourable UCAS and employer opinions. Behaviour in independent sector also tends to be better as parents want value for money and will on the whole expect their children appreciate their efforts. Gordon Brown thinks that it is all about money and has made it clear that he wants to raise the money spent on each child's education in the state sector to match that of the private. But this is just more naive New Labour thinking that spend lots of money on shiny new schools and nothing on staffingnor address the reasons there needed to be a new school in the first place. What it all leads back to is that there is no bigger hurdle to raising academic achievement than poor behaviour and the fact that parents pay in indepedent schools means that this is less of a problem there and so attainment tends to be higher. However firmly believe that independent schools remove the level playing field in higher education and the work place and so therefore do not belong in a democracy that has any pretentions of fairness and equity.
Originally posted by Rowan22: I yet do not have any children but my partner is an assistant head teacher at a state school so I may have an interesting vantage point to offer.
Where I live there has been a dramatic increase in the number of "academy" schools, which as I am sure you are aware are usually closely related to faith based education.
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I had no idea that the 'Academy Schools' were linked to religion. In my area we have two ....one linked to Business the other to Art ......................TBH don't really understand all this academy stuff. Laziness on my part as I haven't really looked into it ......but I didn't think religion played a part.
I don't have children; when I do, if state schools haven't changed, I'll either send them to a grammar school, or a private school if they don't get in
I went to a grammar school and have no problem saying that if I'd gone to one of the state schools near me instead there is no way I'd have done as well as I did. Most of the children who attend the state schools near me don't want to be there and don't want to learn. They fight and disrupt lessons and bully those who do envisage a future for themselves. The pass rate hovers between 30-50% compared to 96% at the grammar school I went to
If state schools have improved obv I'd consider them; but if they're not much better they'd be an absolute last resort. One of the main reasons I've worked hard and want a good, highly paid job is because I want to give my kids the best I possibly can
There are a few boroughs where the state schools are in a hideous mess. But on the whole I find that the less people have to do with state education, the more hostile they are to it. Some people who have never set foot inside a state school have a hideously exaggerated mental picture of them being full of pig-ignorant yobs being taught worthless subjects by terrible teachers.
I am glad to say that both my children went to the local perfectly average high school where they had good teachers and bad teachers but generally learned the valuable lesson of getting along with anyone. I am delighted that they had the confidence and inclusiveness to make friends with newly arrived Somali girls, Irish travellers who came and went from the school etc - that is REAL education.
They both got 4 A's at A levels and both got into Oxbridge.
If you are going to compare grammar schools with comprehensive schools, you can only take into account the top 20% of results from comprehensive schools. Otherwise the comparison has no meaning at all.
Fine if you have the choice: if the state schools where I live were better perhaps I'd have gone to one instead. Certainly if I happened to live in an area where the state schools were comparable to the grammar schools I would have no problems sending my kids there
I don't think people have a distorted view of what state schools are like: most people know people who attend or people who have children who attend. I have a pretty good knowledge of my local state school because my mum works there. There is at least one fight every breaktime, there is a lot of bullying, particularly of kids who are considered 'geeky': ie those who work hard. The kids roll in the hoodies and trainers with no intention of doing any work. Lessons are disrupted to the point that teachers have to call for 'back-up' from senior members of staff. The pass rate is less than 40%.
I personally would find it hard to get on with my work in this environment. They do get good results from some students. But many get distracted or fall in with bad crowds. Personally I would rather send my children to a grammar or private school if this was the alternative
In terms of mixing with different people, I didn't find this an issue. My school was mixed sex, and although catholic there were students from other religions. Granted it was largely middle class white people, but this has not affected my, nor anyone else I know who went there, ability to mix with different people. I'd also add that it was mainly because it was a Catholic school not because it was a grammar school, that this was the case: the other grammar schools near by had a large mix of races, religions and classes.
Originally posted by barbie86: I don't think people have a distorted view of what state schools are like: most people know people who attend or people who have children who attend. I have a pretty good knowledge of my local state school because my mum works there. There is at least one fight every breaktime, there is a lot of bullying, particularly of kids who are considered 'geeky': ie those who work hard. The kids roll in the hoodies and trainers with no intention of doing any work. Lessons are disrupted to the point that teachers have to call for 'back-up' from senior members of staff. The pass rate is less than 40%.
Well I wasn't getting at other people on here. But you must recognise a certain sort of right-wing journalism where they huff and puff about the "catastrophic failure of the comprehensive system", when it is perfectly obvious that neither they nor their children, nor their friends or THEIR children, have ever set foot inside one.
I was lucky in that my children were able to go to a "true" comprehensive: it was totally racially and socially mixed, with the catchment area including million pound houses in a leafy London village, a couple of big council estates and a travellers' camp. The results hover around 60% passing every year, which I think is a credit to a good school.
Where results are very poor, it is either a sign of a very deprived area, or of a school which has been stripped bare of its achievers. A few miles down the road from me and schools start to get perilously close to a ferociously competitive grammar school and an almost equally competitive church school. The results of the less favoured schools absolutely plummet. One of them regularly got under 20% through their GCSE's. It is now (£30 million later) a shiny new academy, and the results are still very poor. The papers are full of chest-beating. But I think the results are bound to be poor, even in the government spents a billion pounds on solid gold buildings: they have lost their entire a-stream and half their prospective b-stream to selective schools nearby.
