Private school vs state school

But, by definition, all schools are going to be exclusive in some way or another.

But, by definition, all schools are going to be exclusive in some way or another.

Sorry, I should have said “all schools which are only available to those able to pay are exclusively available only to those able to pay”.

Better?

Things which should not influence school entry:
* parental income
* religion

Loving the expert’s opinion throughout this thread.

Up until July I taught a one of Edinburgh’s top day schools (independent) and am now at a Border’s state school which is on the lowest rung of the poverty index.

This thread made me take a look at the website of a local private school. I was surprised at just how expensive it was, and at how unimpressive its results seem to be.

Their fees per term are about the same as we get per student per year.

So on what basis do other schools exclude others? Where you live perhaps? What happens if you live outside the catchment area?

Loving the expert’s opinion throughout this thread.

Thanks for sharing your insights.

So on what basis do other schools exclude others? Where you live perhaps? What happens if you live outside the catchment area?

We don’t have catchment areas. Schools have criteria by which they prioritise places and ability to buy a house in a certain area will influence ability to get into a school, but it shouldn’t, and all schools should be good enough that that are no ‘good’ schools.

But how are the places prioritised and allocated ?

It might be worth considering like for like. a lot will depend on the state school you might send your kids to. Some are pure dumping grounds of kids who do not want to learn. I have taught 4 different classes this week at an inner city junior. Every class has a couple of kids who despite every strategy known to all sorts of experts, will not settle to work. I spent at least 15 minutes with one kid, ie 25% of a lesson when by rights he should have had 4%. this meant that the other kids education suffered. I would go a long way to put kids in a place that didn’t have these.

Private schools entrench divisions and elitism

I have no problem with this. My experience and that of many of my family & friends is that our state schools practically encouraged mediocrity and I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to have a better start than I did, so if a private school is the way to achieve that, bring on the division and elitism. I can only be responsible for my own dependents’ education – and I’ll give them the best I can afford without apology.

Very sad selfish attitude andyrm.

Truly one of Thatcher’s children. 😉

But how are the places prioritised and allocated ?

That varies from school to school, and could easily be engineered to make it fairer than currently, but doesn’t include the ability to fork out £12k per year per child.

I’ll give them the best I can afford without apology.

Can’t see them making many friends along the way if they inherit your attitude. They’ll be lonely souls won’t they? Probably end up hating you and wishing you’d sent them to the local comp so that everybody doesn’t hate them.

Ok, mike but basically state schools may exclude pupils based on where they live, religion, ability etc depending on the type so school and pupils who do not fit whatever criteria will be excluded, correct?

The Soks offspring all went to a (good) state secondary school.
SFO1 has a 1st in both her BSc and MSc and is currently studying for a PhD.
SFO2 is currently a senior retail manager (not bad for a 23yr old, by all accounts).
SMO is in his final year at Uni and predicted a 1st.
All of them are born leaders – private edukashun? Pft!!!

Ok, mike but basically state schools may exclude pupils based on where they live, religion, ability etc depending on the type so school and pupils who do not fit whatever criteria will be excluded, correct?

Exclusion on account of location is inevitable. But there should be no exclusion based on ability, religion, etc if everything was running well and all schools were “good”. If they were all “good”, then location wouldn’t matter either of course. Unless you’re the type of person who is aghast at any changes to the status quo.

My old school which was and is private was in a very dire state ten years after I left as parents wanted to see there kids more especially at weekends. It had had a few mediocre headmasters and was struggling to fill its roll despite being a “name” school and having 600 years of history. The governing body had to react and made major structural changes, recruited two exceptional headmasters and it is now thriving and fully deserves the reputation that is assumed by many. 10% of the pupils are on fully funded bursaries, half of which have been funded in the last ten years from fund raising. The bursaries are awarded to pupils of state schools in deprived areas with whom it has developed partnerships on the recommendation of the staff of those schools based on who would most benefit from a boarding education not on academic criteria.

It would be a great shame to see an institution capable of such transformation being banned for ideological reasons. Far better to learn from its experience.

Indeed, a good headmaster has never turned a badly performing state school around. It’s a good job there are independent schools to lead the way when it comes to that kind of thing.

Actually the structural change of going fully co-ed was more important as it allowed it to increase its pool of potential pupils. The key is that it had the ability to adapt – a centralized system in London does not provide that to the state sector.

The last I heard, state schools in London were streets ahead of state schools in the rest of the country.

Hmmm…I’ll see if I can dig our where I heard/read it. Probably won’t be tonight though.

So on what basis do other schools exclude others? Where you live perhaps? What happens if you live outside the catchment area?

state schools may exclude pupils based on where they live, religion, ability etc depending on the type so school and pupils who do not fit whatever criteria will be excluded, correct?

I am not sure what your point is here tbh could you be explicit?
It seems weak to suggest that the selection and elitism of private schools is somehow the same as what happens in the state sector who select almost entirely on geography [ or geography + religion for faith schools- I assume the fee schools do this and then add ability to pay and aptitude.
Its obvious private schools confer an advantage [ more pounds per pupil will do that] or no one would pay to send their kids there.

DD – London as the centre of government not as a place where there are schools.

miketually
Things which should not influence school entry:
* parental income
* religion

Their fees per term are about the same as we get per student per year.

This is very anti-choice. Why shouldn’t parents with religious beliefs be able to send their children to a school which matches those beliefs and pay for that school, especially if unless it was privately funded it wouldn’t exist.

I am assuming your state payment per head doesn’t have to fund the buildings perhaps not even staff salaries ? As I posted before I would like to see state education much better funded as it is Germany and France.

@grum as for your divise and elitist comment that is just how you see it and you are associating it with the private school. Those kids would still come from “wealthy” families if they went to state school and in your head woukd still be “the elite”. In France if you go to a private school everyone thinks you must be a bit thick and need special help. It’s you who are making the school elitist in your own mind.

So if you are against discriminating on the basis of wealth and /or religion you oppose choice ?
To make these things a criteria you remove the choice from many.
Neither can be presented as pro choice argument.

IMHO they should not be able to do it as it is unfair on other children who do not get the opportunity to attend these schools as they are either too poor or the wrong religion.

@junkyard poor people cannot afford to buy a car so do you ban everyone from owning one ? The solution is to better fund state education not try and ban choice.

I personally know 5 people who went to boarding schools if thats any help.

All of them have had failed or extremely difficult personal relationships. Only 1 of them got as far as managing to marry someone (they divorced, now on 2nd attempt).
4 out of 5 of them have no children.
4 of them are quite unhappy people disappointed in how their lives have turned out.
4 of them believe boarding school and separation from parental families caused social difficulties for them when it came to future partners etc.

They age in range from late 40’s to mid 60’s
They all went to different boarding schools, not the same one.

What shocked me most was the way that the schools solidly discoraged any independent thinking or self motivation. Also the lack of day to day common sense that is missing as they were never exposed to such things in a way people living at home would be.

There is actually a society called ‘Boarding School Survivors’ that provide advice and support for people who find life/relationships after boarding school devastating to deal with.

I think the parents should have been jailed for child cruelty, having personally seen the consequences to the kids even in later life.

The’best’state school where I live is a catholic school. The fact that only children of catholic parents can go there is wrong, and anti-choice.

(I don’t think many people care about choice. I think they want their local school/hospital/whatever to be good.)

Apart from occasional special bids, the £4k we get per student is our only income. (This is a much lower figure than it was a few years ago.) We do very well with it.

How do people feel with regard staying at the same school to a levels vs school to gcse then college for a levels? Any benefits in either scenario?

@grum as for your divise and elitist comment that is just how you see it and you are associating it with the private school. Those kids would still come from “wealthy” families if they went to state school and in your head woukd still be “the elite”. In France if you go to a private school everyone thinks you must be a bit thick and need special help. It’s you who are making the school elitist in your own mind.

I think that’s a bit of a stretch TBH. Yes they would still come from the same background if they went to a state school but they would be mixing more with people across the economic spectrum. Of course there are plenty of people who don’t want that for their kids – those people are called snobs.

FWIW I think religious schools entrench division too and shouldn’t exist. They certainly shouldn’t be state funded.

In my experience (10 years teaching private v’s 2 months (now) at state).

The kids are the same ability and raw talent, what might be called the tail is longer as there are more kids with issues inhereted from the lifestyle of the parents (anything from feotal drug/drinks issues to extreme long term poverty, attitude to education/society). For these kids school is a stable environment, OK they may not be the best kids and may hate education but they are safe while there.

THe main differences comes from home and the ambition, at private school everyone is expected to go to Higher education and that is not an expectation that is instilled in school as they are more than aware that not all of the kids have the ability, in the school I’m at at the moment, I would say that 10% of the pupils expect to try for Higher education, although some are trying for a bursary to spend the last two years of school at Rugby.

At private schools the kids and parents are scared of failure (perhaps due to the money spent) but that fear is not in state pupils, I’m not saying they are happy with it they just are not driven to work as hard by the fear, perhaps their world is insular too and the opportunities they see are limited.

The behaviour is very different and though much more of an issue at state school it is much more niave, in private there is a real subtleness and in some cases real nasty intent to the bad behaviour.

Lots of other similarities and differences. But I’ve gotta go to work I have a class of 20 this morning which are working to three different exam levels, which is tough and not something you get in teh independent sector.

What shocked me most was the way that the schools solidly discoraged any independent thinking or self motivation. Also the lack of day to day common sense that is missing as they were never exposed to such things in a way people living at home would be

They must have been v unlucky then. To counter the anecdote there are more than 4 ex-boarding school pupils on here who (apart form a bizarre fetish for wearing odd clothes and riding bikes down steep slopes) seem perfectly happy, well-adjusted and capable of independent thought. Then this is the week that my son has the agree initial essay topics for independent research to be carried out in the summer holiday. Needs to be outside the curriculum, academically challenging and independently researched. Compare that with the comments from one state sector teacher on here that it is pointless to read around the topic or use text books that extend beyond the syllabus. Does the argument still hold? That (preparing the independent essay) is on top of having to (without parental input) do his own homework, organise his own room, keep clothes tidy, sew a button on, organise his own music practice, work out how that fits in with sport etc. Clearly actively discouraged from any kind of independent thinking or need to use common sense????. I must be an evil parent to let him stay in such a hell-hole. As an employer, the one thing that has always struck me about ex-boarding school pupils is that they are generally (though not exclusively) more capable of independent thought/action.

So we have agreed that all schools exclude pupils on some basis – it’s no longer just private schools that are exclusive. These range from ability to pay, location, academic ability, religious belief etc. So of these which is the most exclusive or least flexible? Well, since 30-33% of pupils in the independent sector are there because of bursary support perhaps it is fair to say that ability to pay is not more exclusive than the other factors! Indeed arguably less so. What it is, is simply more emotive……which is generally a bad starting point for objective analysis.

As an employer, the one thing that has always struck me about ex-boarding school pupils is that they are generally (though not exclusively) more capable of independent thought/action.

Prejudice/confirmation bias.

So we have agreed that all schools exclude pupils on some basis – it’s no longer just private schools that are exclusive.

This is a particularly poor line of argument, I’m really not sure why you’re persisting with it.

bernard – Member
How do people feel with regard staying at the same school to a levels vs school to gcse then college for a levels? Any benefits in either scenario?

Bernard, as I (and others) said before, there are pros and cons to each choice. I have friends who have made the choice you mention and it has worked. Slightly bizarrely at the moment, one of the sad motivations for that choice is to counter the perceived bias that some Unis may (or may not) have towards applications from privately educated students.

The only criteria that is important is to make YOUR choice on the basis of what is correct for YOUR children. Other people’s views are interesting for sure and you have seen the range that this topic creates. But ultimately they are irrelevant since all kids are unique, with their own needs etc. “Comprehensive” (ooops) answers seldom work for that reason alone.

Do your own research, visit a range of schools and decide what is right for your child. Good luck, it can be daunting IMO.

It is exactly confirmation bias Grum. EXACTLY. There was a hidden motive for positing it, which you got Immediately. Why bother? For exactly the next point.

Much of the stuff written about exclusivity falls for the same trap. When you step away and look at the facts, the result is actually quite different from the knee jerk biases (exactly like the one I made) that frequent these arguments. Little more than anecdotes that may serve to entrench prejudice or confirm bias.

QED

Private schools aren’t any more exclusive than state schools? Is that really what you’re claiming?

If that were the case I think you’d find numbers attending would drop off pretty quickly. Exclusivity is part of the appeal.

Teamhurtmore… This is part of my research, if you cut through some of the arguments there are some decent points made/advice. I have my own opinions and to some degree predjudices. Before I had kids I would never have considered sending them private….my feelings have changed to some degree based upon my experiences so far. At the end of the day I just want to give my kids the best opportunity I can.

Exclusivity played no part in the sacrifice I make to invest in my children’s’ education. The available choices simply fitted them better and I was prepared to make other sacrifices. For me personally, there is no better investment that I can make than in my children’s education and I will give up other things to ensure that.

“Exclusivity is part of the appeal” – did someone mention prejudice and confirmation bias earlier? QED II

Bernard, x-post. I appreciate that and they are lucky that you are doing the required homework. Too often parents allow pre-concteptions to affect their choices. The result? Potentially bad choices FOR THE CHILD in both directions.

They are all kinds of more important aspects beyond the simple state v private eg, mixed v single sex, type of exams taken, style of teaching, culture of the school, quality of the head and senior staff and the BIG unknown your child’s peer group. The latter cannot be known before you arrive and yet can have a major impact on your child’s enjoyment and success.

the knee jerk biases

“Comprehensive” (ooops)

Do you ever wonder why you get accused of patronising thm? Honestly, these passive aggressive comments and (mostly mild albeit) ad hominems embedded within your posts do nothing to sway opinions. Let me just clarify it for you – not every opinion which contradicts yours is a “knee jerk bias”. You really have to stop taking this tack – if, according to your stringent defences, this isn’t deliberate, then you need to work on your tone.

Exclusivity is part of the appeal.

I wouldn’t say it’s “exclusivity” that’s the appeal – it’s the fact that there are less disruptive elements, less disenfranchised teachers (that are pretty much impossible to sack in public sector schools) and a more rounded approach to education and preparing them for work and higher ed rather than passing exams by numbers.

For me personally, there is no better investment that I can make than in my children’s education and I will give up other things to ensure that.

My thoughts exactly. As a parent, my role is to provide for my children to the best of my ability to ensure they do better than I did. If that means paying for their education to ensure they get a better head start relative to their competition, then so be it.