Private school vs state school

Nice irony DD – I assume the neighbour said no?

The knee-jerk reaction referred to my own point, including the italics for emphasis. Did you (intentionally) miss that in the desperation to use the ad hom that you accuse me off? Re tone and the rest of the accusations, look in the mirror first. Then think about the accusations you like to make.

Of course, comprehensive was a deliberate choice. One fits all is a very poor way of satisfying the varying and unique needs of children. The best schools be they private/state/religious/non-religious etc and the best teachers understand that. That is where the research comes in, they need to be identified. Money/fees is not always the answer.

THM – all you’re doing is declaring your own opinions to be facts and opinions you disagree with to be biased. Exactly what you accuse others of doing.

We have already seen in this thread people saying they want to send their kids to private school to avoid them having to mix with certain types. Next are you going to claim that black is actually white

THM/Grum/insert name of choice – all you’re doing is declaring your own opinions to be facts and opinions you disagree with to be biased. Exactly what you accuse others of doing.

FTFY -actually that’s unfair on at least two of the above. Refer to the the use of the word bias above. I have acknowledged others experiences and merely countered them with different ones for balance. And then unlike you, stressed that all of this is interesting at best, irrelevant at worst. I have recommended that Bernard does his own research and makes his own choice. Have you?

We have already seen in this thread people saying they want to send their kids to private school to avoid them having to mix with certain types. Next are you going to claim that black is actually white

My son has to mix with a very wide range of people. From those whose parents make significant sacrifices, arrive at school in clapped out cars (mine included) to sons of oligarchs with bodyguards etc. When the cars have gone, none of that matters. They all have to get on irrespective of their backgrounds. One of the first things that goes is bragging about money and branded clothing. Those types get squashed by peer group pressure pretty quickly. Mixing with different types of people is key especially if you are boarding and living in close proximity.

Mixing with different types of people is key especially if you are boarding and living in close proximity.

The one thing that all that absolutely enormous social mix of people will all have in common is that they can all afford the fees? So what percentage of the population does that account for then?

So when you state ‘mixing with different types of people is key’ , what you really mean is ‘mixing with different types of people – as long as their parents are in the top 5% demographic of the countries income scale – is key’

Hardly an advert for some all-inclusive, multi-cultural, egalitarian utopian meritocracy, where empathy with ones fellow man rules, is 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?

It depends upon your child and what your local sixth form/FE college is like.

We get a lot of former-private students, because we get results that are as good as private but for free. Some struggle with the new-found freedom relative to private school, while others cope fine. The ones who struggle will probably have struggled at uni, so at least they struggle while still at home.

The one thing that all that absolutely enormous social mix of people will all have in common is that they can all afford the fees?

Which makes you wonder why 30-33% require bursary support?

It would be interesting to explore the range of backgrounds between different schools for sure. Just because on type happens to extend into oligarchs and royalty at ONE end does not mean that the overall range of background (be it income, race, religion etc) is any more or any less.

My son has to mix with a very wide range of people. From those whose parents make significant sacrifices, arrive at school in clapped out cars (mine included) to sons of oligarchs with bodyguards etc.

Wow, that’s a huge variety of people who can afford £20k+ per year.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population’s take home pay is less than your school fees and they’re mixing with each other in state schools.

Which makes you wonder why 30-33% require bursary support?

*cynical*
Creaming off the brightest kids from the state sector to improve results?
*/cynical*

miketually – Member

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 think you’ll find Michael, that Catholics are just inherently superior creatures to you other heathens, particularly intellectually. Thats just the way it is. Don’t blame us. Blame God! It may be unfair, but we didn’t ask for it. It just happened

😉

Just because on type happens to extend into oligarchs and royalty at ONE end does not mean that the overall range of background (be it income, race, religion etc) is any more or any less.

Yes it does. Quite obviously. To try and maintain anything otherwise is frankly preposterous

I think you’ll find Michael, that Catholics are just inherently superior creatures to you other heathens, particularly intellectually. Thats just the way it is. Don’t blame us. Blame God! It may be unfair, but we didn’t ask for it. It just happened

Part of me wishes we were sending our eldest to the Catholic school across town, just to see the effect that a bright, cynical, sarcastic, atheist* has on the place 🙂

*I have no idea where she gets it from

I haven’t read the whole thread so this may well be repitition but:

I want what is best for my kids. Private schools, especially at secondary level, have superb facilities, smaller class ratios and seem to invest much more importance on sport etc. If there was a private school closer to our home, we would send our kids there.

Obvious caveat is that not all private schools are great!

When I lived in Edinburgh I helped run a local Cadet unit and our main catchment was one of the big fee paying schools. The kids from there were engaging, motivated, polite and a credit to their school and families, exactly how I would hope my kids turn out.

I want what is best for my kids. Private schools, especially at secondary level, have superb facilities, smaller class ratios and seem to invest much more importance on sport etc. If there was a private school closer to our home, we would send our kids there.

Obvious caveat is that not all private schools are great!

When I lived in Edinburgh I helped run a local Cadet unit and our main catchment was one of the big fee paying schools. The kids from there were engaging, motivated, polite and a credit to their school and families, exactly how I would hope my kids turn out.

^^Nail. Head.

Just because on type happens to extend into oligarchs and royalty at ONE end does not mean that the overall range of background (be it income, race, religion etc) is any more or any less.

What proportion of the kids would be entitled to free school meals?

If you get any of the following support payments your child may be entitled to receive free school meals:

* Income Support
* Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
* Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
* Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
* the guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
* Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
* Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
* Universal Credit

– https://www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals

When I lived in Edinburgh I helped run a local Cadet unit and our main catchment was one of the big fee paying schools. The kids from there were engaging, motivated, polite and a credit to their school and families, exactly how I would hope my kids turn out.

That’s how my state-educated kids have turned out. It’s nothing to do with the school, it’s the family.

Yes it does. Quite obviously. To try and maintain anything otherwise is frankly preposterous

If it’s as preposterous as you make out, then I assume all schools have a range of backgrounds that extend from unable to pay any fees and on 100% bursary, through partial bursaries and then (some folk here) teachers to royalty and billionaires that have private bodyguards?

Perhaps we are mixing size of population in one segment with breadth of range across different segments?

Part of me wishes we were sending our eldest to the Catholic school across town, just to see the effect that a bright, cynical, sarcastic, atheist* has on the place

Whereas part of me wishes we were sending our eldest to a private school because, IMO, what is best for her is the only factor that matters in this choice.

Perhaps we are mixing size of population in one segment with breadth of range across different segments?

Are you saying a token poor kid in a private school trumps a lack of billionaires in state schools?

I also want what’s best for my kids. The only local comprehensive has just been put into special measures, and has some of the worst GCSE results in the country, which although doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a complete failure, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in a reasonably affluent town in North Yorkshire.

Luckily there are two selective grammars in my town*. So we at least had an option of trying to get them through the exams. If they had failed, and we had the money, I’d be looking at private.

*The success of the comp may or may not be related to the talent-sucking grammars, but I’m not really willing to chance it. 🙁

Perhaps we are mixing size of population in one segment with breadth of range across different segments?

Really, we’re not.

If you want to privately educate your kids, thats fine. As a parent I understand you’ve their best interests at heart. Thats only natural. But please don’t try and make out that they’ll be mixing with some broad cross-section of society, because they won’t. I don’t know whether you have to try and delude yourself that this is the case to convince yourself you’re not involved in the obvious education apartheid in this country created by the present system. But the position you’re trying to maintain is patent nonsense to everyone who hasn’t got blinkers on

The parents sending their kids to the local state comp clearly don’t want what’s best for their kids.

We could have moved the the ‘right’ part of town to be close to the ‘good’ school. We could have remortgaged ourselves to the hilt and taken extra jobs to send our kids private. We could have lied about our religion to get into a particular school.

Instead, we made the selfish decision to live within our means, for my wife to give up work, and to be able to spend time with our kids.

I still want to know what percentage of kids at fee-paying schools are eligible for free school meals.

Your choice and your call. I certainly wouldn’t question your parenting, or your right to exercise that choice.

Conversely, if I want to exercise a different choice for my kids, the same should apply. Fact is, we’re fortunate to have another state-funded option. In some places, there are no alternatives.

Private schools provide a service, same as Mercedes dealers, kitchen fitters and pedigree dog-breeders. I don’t see any great moral problem in using any of them.

The parents sending their kids to the local state comp clearly don’t want what’s best for their kids.

We could have moved the the ‘right’ part of town to be close to the ‘good’ school. We could have remortgaged ourselves to the hilt and taken extra jobs to send our kids private. We could have lied about our religion to get into a particular school.

Instead, we made the selfish decision to live within our means, for my wife to give up work, and to be able to spend time with our kids.

This to some degree will play a big part in our choice, it is at present not a viable option for us due to similar life style choices as above. For it to be possible I would have to return to work in a role that enabled me to essentially work school hours whilst providing the lions share of the fees.

I still want to know what percentage of kids at fee-paying schools are eligible for free school meals.

If you’re asking what percentage of children at private schools get free meals, I’d say 0% – school meals are compulsory and charged extra on top of term fees.

This to some degree will play a big part in our choice, it is at present not a viable option for us due to similar life style choices as above. For it to be possible I would have to return to work in a role that enabled me to essentially work school hours whilst providing the lions share of the fees.

I think, if you looked as a cost:benefit issue, you’d be spending an awful lot of money for a very small potential benefit: academic issues can be countered with private tuition (or parental help); sport can be done out of school; behaviour and attitude come from home. All these are far cheaper.

If you’re asking what percentage of children at private schools get free meals, I’d say 0%

I’m not. I’m asking about eligibility.

school meals are compulsory and charged extra on top of term fees.

That just made our local private £15000 more expensive to send our two kids.

My 8 yr old is at the local state primary, which has an “excellent” ofsted rating.
Last year (year 2) was a disaster. Without wanting to boast, my lad is pretty bright and is consistently top of his class in most subjects. Unfortunately year 2 is all about getting as many kids as possible through their Sats exams.
This meant my son was basically ignored all year as he didn’t need any teaching to pass his Sats; all the teachers attention was on the less able kids. Having freewheeded for a year he is finding it a bit of a shock having to work again.
This is at one of the best state schools in the area, I dread to think what the inner city state schools are like.
I’m desperately trying to raise the funds for private secondary education.

miketually – Member

I still want to know what percentage of kids at fee-paying schools are eligible for free school meals.

Peobably greater than zero but lower than a state average? I’m assuming greater than zero as you put it “token poor kid in a private school” will be there free and meals are included in the price. Why are you so obsessed by free school meals though? Its difficult to argue against you without sounding like a Tory Prick but why are those kids more important to interact with than the kids of oil tycoons?

If you’re asking what percentage of children at private schools get free meals, I’d say 0%

I’m not. I’m asking about eligibility.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and have a wild stab in the dark at the same representative percentage

Peobably greater than zero but lower than a state average? I’m assuming greater than zero as you put it “token poor kid in a private school” will be there free and meals are included in the price. Why are you so obsessed by free school meals though? Its difficult to argue against you without sounding like a Tory Prick but why are those kids more important to interact with than the kids of oil tycoons?

I’m interested in the range of kids in private which, it has been argued above, is the same as in state schools.

My 8 yr old is at the local state primary, which has an “excellent” ofsted rating.
Last year (year 2) was a disaster. Without wanting to boast, my lad is pretty bright and is consistently top of is class in most subjects. Unfortunately year 2 is all about getting as many kids as possible through their Sats exams.
This meant my son was basically ignored all year as he didn’t need any teaching to pass his Sats; all the teachers attention was on the less able kids. Having freewheeded for a year he is finding it a bit of a shock having to work again.
This is at one of the best state schools in the area, I dread to think what the inner city state schools are like.
I’m desperately trying to raise the funds for private secondary education.

Someone on this thread commented on being ignored in a private school because they weren’t a high flier. It’s not a problem exclusive to state education.

Not all state schools cram for SATs: my Y6 daughter’s getting virtually no extra work because of SATs, compared to friends’ kids at other schools.

State schools should be looking at year-on-year progress, with two sub-levels progress being expected each and every year and most schools aim at exceeding expected progress.

But please don’t try and make out that they’ll be mixing with some broad cross-section of society, because they won’t.

Not necessarily, I went to a school most would consider posh but had a huge range of people. From sons of people in the Forbes richest list, to people who had their school dinners paid for them and wore second hand blazers. The rich kids didn’t keep themselves to themselves and the poor kids didn’t either. One of my closest friends boarded because his single mum (shock horror) didn’t want him to go to the local comp (which was dire). So whilst he was living during the week with sons of millionaires etc, he was spending his weekend in a two up two down terraced house in one of the roughest areas of Preston.

This all boils down people wanting what is best for their kids. You have no right to chastise people for that. Some people I don’t think are particularly bothered where their kids go but others, like my mates mum, worked hard to put him in the best place she could so she didn’t have to live a life like her. It also brings a better appreciation from the kids as they can see how hard their parents have worked to put them where they are.

Bikemike – I wouldn’t panic too much, my two had a ‘slow’ year with a bad teacher at their primary, and they got back up to speed pretty quick. I’m really not convinced of the value of private primary education – you could probably do more benefit at home.

This may be coloured by the fact my parents sent me to one for two years where I was forced to wear shorts in the middle of winter and a cap.

Following this thread with interest…
Private school educated all through, as was my brother. His name was put down at an early age for the public school my father had been to, but until we were 11, we both went to the same schools, and obviously had the same parental input. Our (summer) birthdays are within 2 weeks of each other.
My parents were worried that he wouldn’t get good enough marks in the 13+ to get into his school, so my father coached him in the run-up to the exams. My mother attempted to choose my secondary school based on the colour of the uniform, but in the end I was allowed to choose my own school, and opted for a boarding school (partly on the grounds that they weren’t getting away with spending all that money on my brother and sending me to a day school, and partly because I couldn’t face the idea of being the only one at home all the time…)
A combination of the fact that my father felt the need to coach my brother so intensively to get in, and the fact that the school was really not that good at the time meant that he didn’t do as well as he might have done in A-levels, and never really achieved his full potential, because he didn’t have the self-confidence. He did come out of that school with some very good friends, and they have stuck together ever since…
Me? I nearly got laughed out of the room by my teachers when I talked about applying for Cambridge, but was the only one who got in that year – I was lucky to have a couple of good teachers who had given me the self-confidence I needed, as well as a house-mistress who accepted that I only broke the unimportant rules, so let me go my own way. I’m not in touch with many of my school-friends, though…

I think, if you looked as a cost:benefit issue, you’d be spending an awful lot of money for a very small potential benefit: academic issues can be countered with private tuition (or parental help); sport can be done out of school; behaviour and attitude come from home. All these are far cheaper.

I don’t disagree with this to be honest, it tends to form a large part of the against discussion. However this….

bikemike1968 – Member
My 8 yr old is at the local state primary, which has an “excellent” ofsted rating.
Last year (year 2) was a disaster. Without wanting to boast, my lad is pretty bright and is consistently top of is class in most subjects. Unfortunately year 2 is all about getting as many kids as possible through their Sats exams.
This meant my son was basically ignored all year as he didn’t need any teaching to pass his Sats; all the teachers attention was on the less able kids. Having freewheeded for a year he is finding it a bit of a shock having to work again.
This is at one of the best state schools in the area, I dread to think what the inner city state schools are like.
I’m desperately trying to raise the funds for private secondary education.

Is remarkably like the concerns I described earlier…..

This all boils down people wanting what is best for their kids. You have no right to chastise people for that.

I wasn’t chastising anyone, for anything. Like I said: As a parent I understand completely why people opt for private school. Its not a choice I’m likely to face. But if you’re going to do it then don’t try and fool yourself that what you’re doing isn’t contributing to a form of educational apartheid, that from the very start engrains a divide that makes a complete mockery of any idea of living in a meritocracy

I’m just saying that if you play your part in making the upper echelons of our society totally unrepresentative of the country as a whole (based purely on wealth), then at least face up to that, and have the honesty to own up to it, instead of this delusional cobblers about inclusion, which is quite frankly tokenism, at best.

Because if you do that, then basically you’re one step away from…

😆

Its not like the rich or poor are some sub species you need to look on with envy or pity, is it? Neither is it the monty python yorkshiremen sketch where knowing the most number of poor people is some badge of honour.

Whilst private schooling might be the best thing for your kids is it the desirable for society as a whole? Assuming there is such a thing.

Doesn’t selective schooling and especially private schooling entrench and widen societal division and inequality? Does the old boy network still count for much? When you look at that Bullingdon Club portrait and look at the Tory front bench, it would appear that it does. it can’t harm one’s progress to the Bar or the Chartered Institute or the golf club to know that Hugo from prep school’s brother Farquhar is already there laying down the welcome mat and proffering a welcoming handshake.

The one-size-fits-all approach of comprehensive education may not work for everyone but it worked for me. I attended a comprehensive school on the edge of Glasgow with a very mixed catchment of deprived inner city and wealthy suburbia. I’d say benefited massively from being around wealthier suburbanite kids who assumed as a matter of course that when school finished they were off to university like their elder siblings and professional parents. You could see that these people weren’t superhuman and that pretty much anything they could do, I could do, if I put my mind to it. If I’d gone to a different school with a more limited social mix that assumption may not have been present and my life chances would have been considerably poorer.

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.

The knee-jerk reaction referred to my own point, including the italics for emphasis. Did you (intentionally) miss that in the desperation to use the ad hom that you accuse me off?

It quite clearly refers to them in the plural [biases]there and to reactions other than your own.

I get the elitist bit an your point and I am not sure it is a factor for everyone to keep their kids away from “riff raff”. However everyone sends their kids to private schools to get a better education and the kind you can only get from paying more money for it and in that sense it is elitist. It clearly wont have the cross section of society that comprehensive education has so again in that sense it is elitist. [ ability and wealth]. I am not sure it is kneee jerk or confirmation bias rather than just a fact tbh. You can be ok with this or not ok with it but I dont see how you can deny it tbh.
No one send their kids to private school to give them a worse education that the state sector provides.
to argue it is not selective or its selection criteria are comparable with biases in the state sector is not a point worth making nor worthy of debate,

Which makes you wonder why 30-33% require bursary support?

Can I have a source for that please as it seems rather high. Bursaries dont always pay all the fees eether they may just mean reduction as well
EDIT: binners is right no one is sending their kids to private education [ with the odd exception of those who use boarding schools for stability and even then they are going to pick a good one] for any reason other than to give them a better education one that poor people generally cannot afford. It may not be the sole reason but if they did not confer any advantage no one would use them as there would be no point.

OH binners remember she did it because I’m a West Indian mum and West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children. what an icon of nobility and principles she is eh perhaps only Blair and Mandy come close to this level of asshattery