State schools and Question time

Grandma70s not at all and that is not what I said. I did say that, even with going without, it is beyond the means of most to pay £20,00+ p.a. for school fees to privately educate one child - plus all the extras on top of that.

Shami Chakrabarti married well,
trisher
I find that rather an odd statement - married well - does that mean she married a wealthy ex-public schoolboy?
So that's OK then.


Surely the best way of fighting for the best education for all is to lead the way, send your child to that 'sink school' and do your utmost to improve it - and all schools.

Sorry, but it is hypocrisy. Everyone wants the best for their child.

She spends £20,448/year to send them to Dulwich College.
Pamela - that's for one child, not them

you do what you can and buy the best you can afford.
Selection by the ability to pay and also by entrance examination.

I can’t agree that houses are the same principle, Grandma70. The ‘nice house’ is the prize at the end of the race; the principle here is about paying or not to put one’s own child ahead at the starting line.

I don't like MPs sending their children to private schools either, but I do think that Grammar schools are a separate issue.
Grammar schools segregate children at far too young an age on the basis of an outdated I.Q. test.

Intelligence is not fixed at age 11. There used to be a 13+ that children could take (which was also far too early in my opinion) but passing that meant changing schools and losing friendship groups.

Far better for all children to start at the same secondary school and classes can be streamed to cater for different levels of academic ability, as the children develop.

Grammar schools also cater for the same level of academic ability across all their subjects, this may not suit all children, who may be gifted in say, the arts, but not the sciences, or vice versa.

In a comprehensive school, streaming would also take this into account.

when Parents pay for private education they take a huge amount of interest in making sure that their children succeed. In the state sector so many parents don’t fully engage with their children’s education by instilling good behaviour, a strong work ethic and respect for education. Grammar schools succeed because they have parental support, good comprehensives likewise.

I’m a recently retired education director and inspector, two of my children teach, my parents taught. Our various careers have been in widely different schools in the state sector and we all rapidly learned that without good parental support for education you face a class of entitled and ill disciplined children and have to spend precious time and resources sorting out what should be family issues rather than teaching.

So many have lost sight of the fact that we are all paying for our children’s education and we all need to get behind it rather than knock the teachers and schools who are running on fresh air!

trisher It's not hypocrisy it's pragmatism

One who is bad for failing to pratice what he preaches, and one with the nature to change their mind on an issue when the facts support the other side.

Grammar schools succeed because the children are selected. State schools take everyone regardless of educational ability or social needs. I would like to see all private education abolished. Then we would see some rise in standards and a level (or more level) playing field.
State schools are good enough for the masses, but not good enough for their precious gene pool.

I think that you are using words that suit your agenda, trisher. It's out and out hypocrisy.

Not hypocrisy because as the party out of power you have no opportunity to change things and so you use the system as it exists that's pragmatism
Jalima1108 if you knew anything about education you would know that one parent sending their child to a "sink' school will not change anything. The only thing that turns sink schools around is a massive investment, providing highly qualified, experienced and dedicated staff and quality resources. Otherwise nothing can change.
The education system is in crisis. There are more failing schools, teachers leaving the profession in droves, low levels of recruitment and retention, more exclusion (35 children a day), bigger classes and less special needs support. So all those who are blethering on about the choices of a few individuals are doing so to distract from the absolute chaos this government has created. Unfortunately as they chunter away a whole generation of children are losing out and being cast on the scrap heap.
But do Tory MPs care? Of course not. They live in afluent areas and private school their kids while voting for education cuts and austerity policies that cause sink schools and create more social problems. But they are so honest aren't they?

One thing that still puzzles me about comprehensives is how teachers cope with both the ultra-bright and ultra-dim children. (Somebody is going to object to those terms.)
Are different teachers employed, because I’d have thought that would be essential? I’m honestly not sure how it worked in my children’s school, and in any case that was many years ago.

In primary school there was definitely only one one main teacher per class. The brighter children tended to be neglected and left to get on with it by themselves.

It is hypocrisy to vote against grammer schools yet send your children to private schools

Was there ever a time when all schools were good? I doubt it. It’s not ONLY the fault of Conservative politicians.

Most secondaries 'set' now Grandma70. Children are assigned to sets for each subject depending on their ability. So you could have a child who was in top set for maths, but a lower set for literacy. It's more succesful than streaming. Some secondaries do advanced sets for very clever children which can result in them sitting some GCSEs earlier

In our high school when my daughters went there children were placed in forms according to results achieved in Junior school. When my grandchildren went there children were streamed in academic subjects, good at English streamed in group 1, not good at English streamed from 4 to 2, as children improved they went up a grade

Schools saw a rapid improvement under the last Labour gov. Does no one remember the classrooms shown before the general election with rain leaking through ceilings and children sitting with their coats on?

As far as staff goes there is usually a bit of competition to get a top set. Lower sets can be hard to manage.

Wasn't it Michael Gove who said all children should be above average?
Anyone seen that BBC2 series on Grammar schools - that would put anyone off.

I saw the BBC programme. It was about one grammar school, one sec. mod. Both seemed pretty awful to me, though I expect the editing didn’t give a full picture. I was shocked that the children were told their exact 11+ marks, so they knew if they were in or out by only one or two marks.

Yes, it was Michael Gove. A Minister for Education who didn't even understand what average meant.

We ended up privately educating our children because of a labour government! It was at a time when (theoretically!) it was possible to choose the achool your children went to - I think dh still Haa the letter from our local lea saying that our reasons were not acceptable.

Our reasons

We did not like open plan schools - apparently, all schools were to become open plan within 5 years.

We wanted our children to go to a school that had some form of uniform policy. All schools had a uniform which our children could chose to wear - despite the fact none of the others did.

And we didn't like the use of Christian names for staff.

The Director of education told dh privately that middle class parents never got first choice schools.

trisher, I'd have thought teaching very bright children in the top sets and teaching low-ability children in the bottom sets were two different arts and would require very different teaching skills. I shouldn’t think many teachers would be equally good at both.

Not exactly Grandma70s clever children can sometimes be difficult to handle. But there is no doubt that dealing with the complex difficulties found in lower ability sets is very demanding, unfortunately young inexperienced teachers are sometimes landed with the job. Although some schools now put their best teachers with the middle sets in order to make sure everyone gets a grade c.

There can be mobility between sets. DGD was disgusted with her SATs Maths result which put her in a low set in Y7. She decided this was not good enough so worked her socks off. Now in Y10, she is in the top set. She doesn't get the maths gene from me!

Personally, I don’t have a problem with parents sending their children to public schools.
If we could afford it we would pay for our GC to go. We can’t so we have to do what we can to encourage him to develop a range of interests that may stand him in good stead in the future.
We hope that our local schools, not much choice here, will continue to be of a good standard in the future.
Wouldn’t it just be amazing though if one of these politicians was just honest enough to say it like it is.
To state that - although comprehensives can be fantastic some aren’t and I ( insert name of choice) am not going to take a chance with my child. Sorry you don’t have the same choice but, hey, that’s life.
As far as teaching upper and lower sets, I think the head tries to give all teachers a mixture but I may be wrong.
I hope this makes sense.