Private Schools

[amner]

Should someone who can afford private schooling for their kids do so? Or, as a strong supporter of the state school system should they shun private schooling?

[skanky]

Are they making a political point or do they think the state school system will give their kids something a private school wouldn't? Is the money better spent saving up for University fees, etc.?

[amner]

Are they making a political point or do they think the state school system will give their kids something a private school wouldn't? Is the money better spent saving up for University fees, etc.?

I have no idea, I was merely offering it as a potential political/ethical conundrum (it could just as easily be used as a 'reducing strain on the NHS' poser). Moving in an environment surrounded by some right-on middle class types I'm forever overhearing people getting all angst-y over similar dilemmas, I just wondered if it was solvable.

[NottyImp]

I think the distinction is becoming increasinlgy blurred, in any case. Specialist schools can now in some cases select, and many of the "better" state schools are in areas heavily dominated by middle-class families, a sort of self-selecting feedback mechanism of its own.

In my experience, the dilemma only becomes acute for a middle-class family when the local comp. happens to be particularly poor. The fact is, though, that bright kids tend to do well in pretty much any school, and as GCSE's aren't worth the paper they're written on (anyone care to dispute that?), and many kids move institution post-16, does it really matter?

Not that I care, abolish the lot of 'em, I say. :wink:

[wshaw]

My kids were born in Hackney and so I round the table for many a Hackney dinner party where these matters were discussed.

It usually started with someone announcing: "God. We're moving out of Hackney. The schools here are so bad."

Embarrassed silence from one couple. Then: "Actually we're sending Raven/Tuesday/Tarquin to public school."

Bitter argument ensues. People accuse the couple of selling out. The couple - usually rich left-wing lawyers - argue that it's ethically better to stay in Hackney and send your kids to public school than to flee.

Host tries to interrupt by turning up latest CD on World Circuit records. Etc.

Note. I now live elsewhere.

[Jerkass]

Interesting, wshaw...same conversation happens regularly where I live, an urban neighbourhood just recently reclaimed from years of decline.

It's slightly different, though...only very occasionally will someone actually claim that people should make a social experiment out of their children by sending them to the public...er, that means state-sponsored here...schools in my City, which are universally acknowledged to be a complete shambles. The people who very occasionally make such a claim don't have any children themselves. So, here, we're just left with the people who are silly enough to pick up their families, move to a soulless, smaller, modern house in the suburbs, and pay three times as much for their houses and (annually) for Council Tax, so their children can go to the better "free" schools, and the sensible people who stay where they are and send their children to any of several excellent private schools.

[Wavid]

I think that, at the end of the day, if you can afford to send your kids to a school where they will receive a better standard of education you really ought to do it - ideology or politics shouldn't come into it.

[gil]

I'm a product of a public school myself, and have reason to be glad of it. The point is not just the quality of education, which I DO believe can be just as fine in a properly organised local school, but the atmosphere of willingness to learn is generally much better.

Having said that, we sent all our children to a local junior school, and two of them to a local comprehensive - albeit a very good one, situated in Silicon Valley, UK (actually Bracknell). The third we sent to a C of E school, and then a public school in Surrey, but she rebelled a bit and went to local Sixth Form College before University.

I'm afraid first class local schools are very rare. If you can afford to send your children to public school, do so. Few can, these days - my school in Ediburgh cost my father £39 a year in 1945 - six weeks' pay for a teacher at the time. Six weeks of a teacher equates to, what, £3000 now? You'd be lucky to get a public school for 3K a year nowadays.

Oh. And don't expect the children to thank you for spending £100000 on their education. They'll accuse you of all sorts of thought crimes until they grow up.

[pandop]

I think that, at the end of the day, if you can afford to send your kids to a school where they will receive a better standard of education you really ought to do it - ideology or politics shouldn't come into it.

Yup.

Same goes for medical care, if you can afford it, pay for it (we already have this for some things anyway - ignoring the minefield of dentistry - if you can afford to pay for prescriptions, you do, otherwise it is free)

Hazel

[NottyImp]

I think that, at the end of the day, if you can afford to send your kids to a school where they will receive a better standard of education you really ought to do it - ideology or politics shouldn't come into it.

Except that there is a broader ideological point, isn't there? Why should well-off kids get a better education than poor kids? Don't they have enough advanatges in life alread? And, of course, the same argument applies to health care.

[amner]

You'd have everyone wearing overalls and breaking wind in the palaces of the mighty, wouldn't you Notty lad? :D

[Wavid]

Except that there is a broader ideological point, isn't there? Why should well-off kids get a better education than poor kids? Don't they have enough advanatges in life alread? And, of course, the same argument applies to health care.

From my own recent personal experience, we did everything we could to get our lad into the best school possible - rather than accepting the school originally given to us. If we were loaded, we'd have sent him to a private school.

Your point is valid. Why should some kids have better than others. But you really have to accept that it isn't going to change, there always will be some schools better than others, and it always will be the more well off whose kids attend the better ones, whether through fees, selection or house prices. If you have the oppotunity to give your child a head start, surely you should take it everytime?

[NottyImp]

"You'd have everyone wearing overalls..."

Oh yes, colour co-ordinated to role in my well-organised Utopia, of course. Yours will be pink with purple piping, amner.

[NottyImp]

Your point is valid...But you really have to accept that it isn't going to change,

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

[NottyImp]

Your point is valid...But you really have to accept that it isn't going to change,

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

Edmund Burke (edited slightly to include women).

[NottyImp]

Your point is valid...But you really have to accept that it isn't going to change,

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."

Edmund Burke (edited slightly to include women).

And of all the social evils I can think of, poor education is one of the worst.

[rick green]

So you send your kids to the best schools possible, unless you think homeschool is the way to go. And then agitate for better schools all around, maybe volunteering as a tutor or something. Is that it? We could rally around this issue and form the palimpsest literacy brigade. Or coach a debate team maybe. Then again, I guess we're doing our part already (albeit indirectly) by tutoring a certain school teacher in the niceties of spelling & grammar. And when I think of that certain school teacher, homeschool definitely looks like the right way to go.

[wshaw]

So. Treading on eggshells.

What I resent about these debates is the way they carve up the logic of the argument.

Those who favour private educations say: "It all comes down to doing what's best for your child."

Those who - like myself - believe in avoiding a private education if at all possible are often labelled as ideologues - as if there's nothing remotely ideological about sending a child to a private school.

What one choses to do with ones children is obviously a very personal decision, and no parent I know takes that decision lightly. But I'm sending my kids to state schools, well... because I think it's best for the child... Both educationally and socially.

Private schools get great results in the league tables. But a substantial part of that is because their intake is self-selecting - through entrance exams and the fatness of the parental wallets. Fair enough, the resulting hothouse can be very beneficial - especially to academic children, but it can also prove pretty numbing too for a proportion of kids. And I think that inevitably they miss out on a lot too.

[Wavid]

As far as I am concerned, though, and this is true for the vast majority of people in this country, the whole debate is entirely academic (hang on...) I'll never be able to afford for any children of my own to go to private schools, so it's the case of getting the best option from the state system.

The one thing that does get my goat about private schools is the assumption that they are better per se than state schools, which isn't true. Like I said, in an ideal world, all kids should go to excellent state schools. But it doesn't always work out that way.

Apologies if I'm guilty of carving up the logic of the argument - wasn't intentional. Though I am not sure that sending a child to a private school is necessarily ideological - though political motivation could be attached to every action we take, I suppose. But if I were in the position to send a child to a fee paying school my reasoning would not be "I believe children should be privately educated, and that state schools are instrinsically bad things" rather that "Johnny will get a better education at a private school than at the local state one, and I can afford it, so I'll do it."

Am I carving again?

Private schools get great results in the league tables. But a substantial part of that is because their intake is self-selecting - through entrance exams and the fatness of the parental wallets. Fair enough, the resulting hothouse can be very beneficial - especially to academic children, but it can also prove pretty numbing too for a proportion of kids. And I think that inevitably they miss out on a lot too.

I think you are right here. Like I said above, the private school has got to be a whole lot better than the state one to justify taking your child out of the state system and of course the cost. Better being, yes, academic achievement but also the social aspect too.

Are private schools still pretty much unregulated? Is it true that you don't have to be a qualified teacher to work in one still?

[NottyImp]

Apologies for those multiple replies - I was editing the posts, but for some reason it has repeated it.

The problem I have with this issue is that it impacts on my life on a daily basis. I work in an inner-city FE college in one of the worst education authorities in Britain, and to top it all, I teach maths to vocational students.

Most of the kids I teach have failed in mainstream education, and in turn have been failed by it. Can we at least pay lip-service to the fact that it can be improved, at least for the sake of my sanity?

[Wavid]

Of course it can. There are two very good secondary schools in Kingo, for example, and one appalling one. Each takes their pupils on a catchment areas, and each has a relatively deprived estate each - so it's not all down to postcodes. It ought to be possible for the third, crappo school to be run as well as the other two, and mechanisms for this to happen ought to be in place. Given that each of the other two schools are bursting at the seams, and the poor one haf empty, maybe one of the others should be able to take over the running of the other?

Isn't it usually the parents' fault, though?

[amner]

Isn't it usually the parents' fault, though?

Pretty much. I have the acid test coming up on that (I loved school and my eldest has her first day at 'proper' school on September 6th). I'll let you know the results in 13/14 years.

Oh, and Society's to blame too :D

[wshaw]

Interestingly in the 60s, public schools used mostly to be "crammers" - heavily examination focussed.

(Apologies to American readers. In the twisted nature of the British system, "public schools" are really private.)

These days political pressure to raise standards has made state schools into crammers - while public schools have gone in the other direction and now seem to be offering a more rounded education than they used to...

The irony is that while in the 80s employers were looking for A levels and results - and bemoaning the state's ability to deliver them, now many schools are turning out pupils with incredible results - but employers now seem to be looking for people with that more elusive quality of "life experience". Which I suspect means that public schools are beating state schools all over again at unlocking the doors to privilege. But that, I guess, is ultimately what you're paying for.

[skanky]

Are they making a political point or do they think the state school system will give their kids something a private school wouldn't? Is the money better spent saving up for University fees, etc.?

I have no idea, I was merely offering it as a potential political/ethical conundrum (it could just as easily be used as a 'reducing strain on the NHS' poser). Moving in an environment surrounded by some right-on middle class types I'm forever overhearing people getting all angst-y over similar dilemmas, I just wondered if it was solvable.

Is it a debate that can be made generally though? If so, then whichever way it falls, shouldn't all children be sent to whichever school is the answer?

In most discussions of this type the arguments tend to be based on anecdotes and as few situations are identical, surely all decisions should be based within the context of it becoming an anecdote.

I went to a state school, my brother went to a public school. There's little difference in outcome except he places sartorial issues slightly higher than I do and he likes watching rugby, I don't. I believe all other differences bewteen us are character traits.

So based on that anecdote, does it matter? Well yes if you want a son who likes watching rugby and dressing well?

[Jerkass]

So, Skanky, if I bring my daughters to England and send them to state schools...you're saying they'll start dressing like you?

[wshaw]

I went to a state school, my brother went to a public school. There's little difference in outcome except he places sartorial issues slightly higher than I do and he likes watching rugby, I don't. I believe all other differences bewteen us are character traits.

I can see a 1980s sitcom evolving here. Did you call each other "Toff" and "Oik"?

[skanky]

So, Skanky, if I bring my daughters to England and send them to state schools...you're saying they'll start dressing like you?

No, as they would be in a very different situation.

I can see a 1980s sitcom evolving here. Did you call each other "Toff" and "Oik"?

I wish we'd thought of that. :(

[NottyImp]

Why do you think he's called "Skanky"?

[Colyngbourne]

I went to one of the rougher comprehensives in Sheffield, though my parents struggled with this dilemma when I chose Latin for A level and the school started huffing about it - in the end, I was taught alongside the Upper Sixth for a year and then had a year of one-to-one tuition, but I would have struggled with the idea of being sent across the city just for that one thing alone. I was lucky.

Here, we have a truly average senior school alongside a private school in the same town, and I find it is the thing that gets me most riled. A proportion of folk send their children out of town to other state senior schools on the spurious notion that they're better somehow, or there is a stricter uniform policy. I also see teachers at the primary school for the town, send their own children to the private school once they hit 11, as if the perfectly good senior school is not enough for them.

I also see how 'top' state schools encourage things like hugely expensive trips to Austalia and New Zealand as part of the expected thing and are actually more divisive socially.

The only thing where private schooling wins out for me, is with the confidence building that seems to issue naturally from being at said institution. They are taught to succeed, whether they do or not, and that kind of attitude is used as an asset right through life.

Knowing some of the teachers at the basic senior school in town, I know how depressing it is when people they know send their kids out of town, as if their teaching is somehow not good enough, when the results in the league tables are the same.

[John Self]

How nice it is when justice is done, as happened today when a pupil's father lost his case (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4294658.stm) to force a private school to take back his ill-disciplined little oik of a son. Rhys Gray was proof if ever it were needed that you don't have to be working-class to be a chav: 400 disciplinary incidents against him in the course of his school life at £22,000-a-year Marlborough, including arrest for being drunk and disorderly at the age of 13, and then had the temerity to complain - or rather his father did - when the school wouldn't let him back to do his A-levels.
Dad Russell Gray, who happily now faces a legal bill of £200,000, said in reaction to the judgment:

I did always say that the best thing that could happen to Marlborough is if they lost it [the case] and demonstrated that they weren't above the law, but it's not to be.

Thus proving that there really are people with as little self-awareness as David Brent out there. Really he was the one who wanted to be above the law, by believing that if you're rich enough, you can usually pay your way out of things by stuffing people's mouths with gold. Not this time.

[kumquat]

"I went to one of the rougher comprehensives in Sheffield, "

Which one Col? My husband and sister in law went to two different Sheffield comps and my in laws both taught in Sheffield for several years. By all accounts pretty rough around the edges at times.

As for this whole debate, I'm with Notty. Rich kids shouldn't have better education just because Daddy owns a county. Similarly, I shouldn't get free NHS treatment just because I live in England. It's abomnibable that I can have clean water coming out of my tap just because I live in a rich country. Not that my kid's ever going to private school. Thankfully my pocket stops me having to stand by my principles!

[Colyngbourne]

I was at Ecclesfield School (the north Sheffield/Barnsley border), which had been a grammar school in its previous incarnation (numbering Barry 'Kes' Hines and Donald Pleasance amongst its alumni), but the Ecclesfield/Chapeltown intake wasn't very well-to-do in comparison with the south Sheffield comprehensive schools - Tapton and Silverdale, King Edward VIth and King Egbert. Thankfully the school had retained many of its old grammar school teachers whilst I was there. The sadistic games teacher portrayed in 'Kes' was deputy head whilst I was at the school.

It wasn't as 'rough' as the schools further in towards town - Firth Park and Firvale, and the infamous Parson's Cross - but it was huge: approaching 2000 students at one point.

Now we neither have the inclination or the money to opt into the fee-paying school nearby, or the state school with the 'better image' a few miles away.

[NottyImp]

Not this time.

No, just most of it.

[Jennifer]

Ideologically, I believe in state schooling. Education should be free (this includes HE, but that's another debate...) But I'm a hypocrite. I go to a private school.

I used to go to the local perfectly good comprehensive, where all three of my brothers were fairly happy and did fairly well, and where one of them still attends. But I ended up being universally despised, for being ginger, I think, I'm still not really sure. The teachers, though good at teaching, were useless at dealing with kids trying to beat up and depress other kids, and didn't do anything, for me or any of the other geeks, losers or special needs kids. So in desperation I sat the scholarship exam for one of the private schools - I picked the shabbiest one, so as not to have to compete with the Leeds Girls skiing crew. I got in, got the scholarship, and have never looked back. I am happier, more confident, and have a couple of sets of exam results I would never have got at the other place. I don't think the teaching is necessarily any better, it's just that, being private, my school can afford to actually care about every single pupil, academically and socially. They have the time and money to make sure that all the kids are happy and safe, so the teaching kind of takes care of itself. Funnily enough, there are fewer social divisions that there were at the comprehensive - such as in the sixth form we wear a suit, and a suit's a suit no matter if it's Armani or Matalan. So I am a convert. I think this kind of education should be available to everyone - a good all-round education that's not hothousing (our head doesn't believe in league tables since all our Chinese students take exams a year late and are thus classed as having failed the previous year, so there's not so much pressure) and builds confidence. But since it's not, I'm not going to feel guilty for having passed that exam.

[youjustmightlikeit]

And neither should you. I did.

You're right, this sort of education should be available to everyone. Which is why i despise Labour with an all consuming passion for abolishing the assisted places scheme which i took advantage of when i was a kid.

I can hear the responses now: 'But this level of education should be available to all ideally' Well of course. But let's face it, without some sort of selection there will always be scumbag kids messing it all up for everyone.

Would you want your little Johnny sat next to Ryan?

[Colyngbourne]

The state primary school that my youngest child attends has just come in as one of the top 40 schools in the country (out of 24,000) - of which I am incredibly proud. I don't totally hold with league tables really but I'm still chuffed to bits and think their position well-deserved.