So called left wingers who pay school fees

Children aren't an experiment for us to play with, they only get one chance at education and if it's not good enough and we can do better for them, with or without sacrifices, then it's our job to do it. And, then of course, for people in the public eye, there is the security issue for their children let alone the possibilities of bullying because of who their parents are.

I think Paul McCartney sent his children to the local comprehensive school - Stella used to be quite bitter about it, she said it was just because he was mean! I could understand if he and Linda had decided that there was too great a risk of kidnap.

Stella doesn't seem to have suffered as a consequence of her parents' choice of school, or maybe her schooling had nothing to do with her success now.

nanban, we only get one chance at life. Education continues throughout life unless one chooses not to carry on learning.

Don't get me wrong there are some excellent state primary, secondary and special schools out there. I was more than happy to send my DD and DS to these. It's just a shame that in the 21st century, with all the resources that have been pumped into them, some are not up to standard. Equally true there are schools who try their damnedest but their pupils just don't want to be taught and the parents aren't supportive.

If only we were all the same, it would make life so much easier - boring, of course.

Bags - quite right but our characters are hugely affected by our early years, and the directions we might go in. Life is a never-ending, unavoidable, steep learning curve but that's a whole other topic!

Agree, nanban and dog. What depresses me is that we hear so many sad stories of state education and not enough happy ones. I'm willing to bet that the sad, unsuccessful schools are a small percentage of the whole. I also wonder if that won't always be the case because the goalposts keep changing. What was regarded as adequate two generations ago no longer is. From personal experience I'd say my own kids went to better schools than I did and yet the schools I went to were regarded as good (though nothing exceptional) in their time, but if they were examined by today's standards, I think they might be found wanting in several respects.

From what my parents told me of their schools (also good by the standards of the time), my schools were better than theirs too.

It is very hard and I can understand why your family acted as they did Nanadogsbody. You are absolutely right about the lack of resources and personnel in Local Authorities now; of course in Academies the LA has no official role to play at all.
If the school has been in special measures for a long time, then I would have expected the head to have been replaced, because, as others have said, good leadership and management is at the heart of school improvement. Sadly I think many teachers feel very demoralised at the moment and recruitment and retention of school leaders gets harder and harder.

My grandchidren's schools were immeasurably better than mine, but apart from DotheBoys Hall it would be hard to find a worse school than my catholic junior school. We learnt a lot of catholicism and not much else.
I used to visit every primary and middle school in the Wirral as part of my job and I am happy to report that even then, in the late 1970's, the huge majority of schools were happy, productive places. The very worst school in the area had an alcoholic head who was far more interested in running his own music business from school than supervising the teaching. I was able to take all his staff onto the Teaching Reading course which my service ran, and they began to get enthusiastic in spite of him. The local authority education department knew about him, and did nothing.

I saw an interview with somebody who had been at Design College with Stella McCartney - he said she was not considered to be very talented and they were surprised at how well she had done. Hmm.......nothing to do with having a multi-millionaire father and endless contacts, then.

I don't think either my junior school or my convent grammar school contributed much to my development - I was encouraged to read widely at home and found my own route to higher education as a mature student.

That's my point, the huge majority are 'happy, productive places'. Reasonably we can't expect 100% ..can we? Let me give you an example. I drew down lottery funding which meant that every primary and every special school in the authority could have either an adventure playground or a play zone to the value of £12,000. I wrote to all the Headteachers in the weekly bulletin.

90% returned a 'YES' within a week.

I wrote individually to the other 10% and most of those replied by return.

Over the next few weeks, I wrote, faxed, emailed the remaining few. One eventually responded. The reminding few never did respond, even after a phone call.

When the play areas were installed guess who were the first to complain they had never been included? Luckily I keep detailed paper trails ain't it?

My senior GD and her half brother went to a first rate primary school almost on my doorstep. The fact that it was in a prosperous and - dare I say it - middle class area with largely professional/managerial parents might have had something to do with it, of course. Few of the kids in the neighbourhood were sent to any of the private prep schools, and hardly any of my GCs' cohorts went on to private secondary education. The local authority at the time had one of the best records in the NW which meant that there was a remarkably low turnover of teaching staff.

Nanad I have had a similar experience to the one you describe, including visits to head teachers! I've also come across very low expectations on the part of staff, and teachers persuading kids not to apply for Oxbridge or even the Russell group because, so they said, the kids would be happier at the Asda Uni down the road.

I think there's a lot of truth in the post that said often good teachers get demoralised. I don't know what the answer is.

Like Bags, we listened to the children reading at home everyday - not sure anybody ever heard them read at school. It is a very worthwhile thing to volunteer to listen to children at your local school.

We complemented our childrens' education with music lessons (both went to Grade 8 with 2 instruments). Also art and pottery (free courses at our local Teacher training school), studying local wildlife, youth hostelling trips with a fun + study element, etc - always including other children in the neighbourhood that didn't have those opportunitites.

Here in Switzerland we also help with the local primary - with English, and outside actitivities like hiking, skiing, etc. Very worthwhile and rewarding.

listening to the news tonight and hearing about the shortage of school places, and first choice of school. Tragic.

My niece couldn't get her 'school of choice' for her girls 2 years ago, so her parents bought a flat for her in the catchment area of said school - and she 'pretended' to live there until they got the girls in - then sold the flat and moved back to their own home. Just one example of those that go on - and of course only available to the middle class.

I live in the South East I can tell you that we have a shortage of school places and a dire shortage of affordable homes which will get worse as the population grows. We are a small island with a finite amount of space to expand even if we were to have a massive house building programme.

It's a comment often made, and yet England has huge areas with hardly any population on it. When we lived in East Leics we could drive to Norfolk or to Lincolnshire without coming across any towns at all (apart from going past Peterborough). That of course does not apply to such an extent in the South East.

Here in Switzerland, by comparison, we are much more densely populated, on land suitable for building, as so much land is taken by mountains and lakes - one reason why people tend to live in flats (but generally not high-rise) rather than houses.

In world density ratings, Switzerland is 52nd and UK 74th.

Now that is surprising, granjura! I bet a lot of people wouldn't expect the UK to be anywhere near that low. I suppose the problem is that there are so many places where you couldn't build, as well as places where no one would want to live!

Granjura - the problems with parents helping out in schools is the vetting procedure they have to go through here which is costly apart from anything else. Do you have the same rules in Switzerland?

And if people are going to all sorts of lengths to get their children into 'the school of their choice' why is it considered so wrong if some parents also pay? Unless there is absolutely no choice at all, which is rather communistic, there should be no grounds for criticism.

My grandparents paid for my brother and me to go to a private school. This was due to the fact that that Dad being in the Forces we had been to a large number of schools. By the time I left full time education I'd been to 19 schools, my brother to 14 schools. You can imagine the effect that had on our education. When my father was posted to Canada my g'parents wanted to send me to a private boarding school but Mum couldn't bear to part with me. I know it sounds awful but I wish I had gone. I did not get on with my father and that made homelife very difficult. Also, I knew that given the chance I would have done very well at school and gone on to university.

Nanban, Switzerland is hardly known as 'communistic' and yet this is exactly what happens - no choice, and it works really well. That way you don't get 'excellent schools' and 'sink schools' and children learn to grow up in a mixed environment, rich, poor and in-between- which stops stereotypes being formed in childrens' minds and finger pointing. When you grow up in a mixed school, you know right from the start that stereotypes don't apply in 90% of cases - and it really helps society as a whole.

As said, the UK has had such a long tradition of (so-called) 'public', private and religious schools - and I just do not know how this could be addressed now.

Totally agree that the shenanigans and border fraudulent behaviour of many to get their kids into the best of state schools- is in many ways 'worse' than paying for private education. See the example give re my niece on a previous post. I have of course not discussed this with my sil and bil, nor my niece- as it would cause upset, but I just couldn't believe they would take such steps.

I also know some parents who let their house and rented another for the 6 month period of application for schools to wangle a place in the school they preferred!

What would be the worst that would happen if tomorrow all private/public /faith/ community schools were all just called 'Learning Centres' and admitted children based on their nearness to school? Would it really be so terrible?

We sent our only daughter to a private school for a very good reason and never regretted the decision as she received a superlative education and went on to be a high achiever. The reason was that we experienced great difficulty in selling our former house and sales fell through while we "bought" houses in different catchment areas and introduced her to three different comprehensives. She became disturbed by all of this and to prevent further problems we chose a private school in the area where we intended to live. Have to say that when I told the headmaster of her current state school of the move he we very sniffy, verging on rude.

I was lucky enough to go to a good old state grammar school with very high values but feel that every penny spent on our daughter's education was a penny well spent and only wish that I could pay for our twin grandsons to be privately educated as it is anyone's guess what sort of school they will be admitted to when it comes to high school.

Where I have lived with children (Edinburgh, Oxfordshire, Argyll), only a tiny minority of people send their kids to private schools. The vast majority just send them to the nearest state school. I wonder if the seven or eight per cent national average for private school attendance is heavily weighted by London and its environs? I imagine England weights the average more than Scotland or Wales too.