GCSE State/Public Schools

I'm a realist!

Jane10 I wholeheartedly agree that education needs to teach pupils and not a fixed curriculum & needs to offer variety to meet the range of needs.
However the fact is that pupils at many fee paying schools have an undeniable advantage due to smaller classes & increased resources/facilities not available to those in state funded education. Sports facilities, laboratories, music and technology, etc. etc. State schools cannot provide that same level of resource or afford to employ the same range of specialist teachers.

I went to a private schoolaged 9-13: the ambience of a former grand house, full of antique furniture, huge grounds and gardens all set a scene of expectation that the 1950s, crittal windowed middle school under the by-pass that my own daughters attended would struggle to achieve. The teachers at both schools were pretty similar; some amazing, some awful and most in between! The school I attended did not have to take all comers and whilst the girls at my school were not all able or perfectly behaved the proportion of children who struggled to lean was far smaller.
If all private schools were brought into the state system it would not create equality but it would , in the DFEs own well loved phrase "diminish the difference"!

Jane - good to be a realist! We all should be actually. But how is that by itself going to solve inequalities in education, opportunities, etc?

Jane10 or unimaginative & risk averse?

The great 'public schools' intake of pupils is mostly from families who are rich enough to have provided their sons and daughters with a start in their lives that in general will benefit them all their lives. They will be better fed, have better health, have more and richer experiences that tend to cost money, and so on, all of which allows them the scope for learning experiences that poorer children often lack.

These well cared for children are the cream and for them to be absent from the state school system lowers the general standard of the schools . The social class division at schools is carried through into adult life and work.

Just 5 minutes from here is one of the well known top public schools. One of the senior teachers is a governor at our little state infant school with me. He is a lovely and charming chap. It has been a real eye opener for him to see the level of scrutiny that state schools endure . Of course one of the perks at the public school is that staff can all have subsidised housing on site or in one of the town properties owned by the school. Now there is a recruitment attraction state schools cannot compete with!

Of course the main difference is funding. A public/ private day school fees are in the region of £18,000 p.a. A State school will get about £5,000 p.a. per pupil state funding, and this has been cut whilst as the same time increasing demands on schools. No wonder private schools can have swimming pools, loads of sports, music, theatres, staff etc. They also don’t have to deal with the huge range of abilities, special needs. The only way of making things equal is more funding for state schools, not abolishing private schools and bringing everything down to the lowest common denominator.

crystaltips hits the nail on the head. Rather than do away with schools perceived as better why not improve state schools.
There's another side to this of course. The matter of choice. Thinking of two families I know: one mum in her early 40s happily stated that having a new car each every couple of years and what she called 'good holidays' eg Florida twice a year were what mattered to them. She said there was 'no point in wasting money on private education.'
The other family run a newsagent and general store and work all hours. To them private education is vital for their children.
Two families, roughly same income, two different ways of spending their incomes.
Those paying for private education also pay through their rates and taxes for the education of all other children.

The quality of the education is variable in both state and fee paying schools. Though the quality of resources is often much better at private schools because of funding so yes I totally agree that there needs to be far better funding for state education. Only about 7% of school students are in fee paying schools.
Recently a child I was teaching in a state SEND unit was given a place at a private SEND school. He will have an hour both ways , in a taxi. All funded by the LA. It is the right place for the child but I think it should be funded by DfE not LA. Someone is making money out of children's needs.I think that is wrong.

Both my children and now my two grandchildren go to independent schools which are fee paying. All the time my daughters were in school some friends said I was “lucky” to be able to afford it. Luck had nothing to do with it we worked very hard to pay for it and did without many things to do so, few holidays , I drove an old car, spent little on myself because my children’s education was more important to me. They were both very bright especially my elder daughter and our state comprehensive was abysmal. My friends spent their money on several holidays a year and brand new cars, their choice the same as education paying was mine. My children worked hard and went to top universities and got high flying jobs but it wasn’t handed to any of us on a plate! More parents who pay are struggling through choice to do so than are rich I assure you and the sneering attitude of people who think all should go to state schools annoy me, and my taxes have paid for the places I don’t use. I left a secondary modern school with a handful of qualifications because the teachers there thought we were worth nothing because we hadn’t passed for the grammar. I put myself through university later in life whilst still working part time and am now far more qualified than the teachers who looked down on me . I could have agreed with them and never progressed but we all have choices

twiceasnice I hear that sort of defence / reason/ "poor us" from a number of families who make a choice to buy education.
My question is always do you think it is morally right to buy what you clearly believe is advantage?
Obviously 7% of the population do.
There are 1000s of families who, no matter what cut backs they made, could not afford school fees. Life is not fair and we will never wipe out inequality but please don't tell me how tough life was for you because your kids went to private school!

So PECS tell us how it could be done? By rounding down all education? By disallowing choice? That sort of thing has an ominous ring to it.

Life is not fair.....of course it isn’t! This isn’t Heaven.

The way I read TwiceAsNice’s post was not about how tough it was for her, but that she thought her choices were as valid as her friends choices.Which they are.
Nobody needs a defence btw it’s entirely their choice what they spend their money on.

OK Jane10
Why rounding down? There are very many excellent state schools and some dreadful fee paying places & vice versa! All children deserve the best education. Not just those already born into advantage.

Choice is questionable! For the vast majority of citizens there is no choice. Do we base a whole system to please less than 10%?
The only ominous thing I see is people buying advantage instead of the state investing properly in the education of all its young citizens.

Pecs I didn’t say I had a tough life I didn’t but I wasn’t rich or advantaged and I made choices I was entitled to make. If yiu pay for education I don’t hear about being offered a rebate for the places you don’t take up in the state sector but nobody says that’s not fair. No matter what education choices you make life is never going to be 100% fair for anybody so why shouldn’t I choose private education if I want to

And don’t give me the is it morally right argument don’t be so sanctimonious

I have experience of both state and private systems. I was privately (selectively) educated myself, though my school was not expensive compared with some. My sons were state comprehensive educated, because where we lived then the state schools seemed better than the few private ones. I was an idealist and thought that if everyone went to the same schools standards would rise. Not the case, unfortunately.

They did very well in exams, with better results than I’d had. Nevertheless, I (and they) think I am better educated. My education was more wide-ranging, more articulate, less limited, with far greater emphasis on ‘high culture’, for want of a better term. I am a more confident speaker.

My grandchildren are at independent schools, and I see the same thing. My son would have liked to send them to state schools - after all, nobody wants to pay the horrendously high fees charged in London, whether they can afford to or not. The simple fact is that the state schools where they live are pretty bad. He wants his children to be properly educated, and luckily they are bright enough to get places at highly selective, oversubscribed independent schools.

It would be wonderful if state schools were all of a high standard. The sad truth is that they are not. I agree the system isn’t fair, but what do you do? Sacrifice your child to your principles? Some people do.

Not sanctimonious it is a perfectly legitimate philosiophical question.

I did not say you had a tough life either twice

Lemongrove I never challenged anyone's right to buy educational advantage. I simply asked if it was the right thing to do.

As to a rebate... what is that about? Where were the nurses / teachers/ lawyers / enguneers/ electricians
etcetc taught? The majority of people that keep things running were educated in state schools.. you get your tax back that way! You made a choice to forfeit state education.

Grandma70 I am interested why your DS might think the state schools in the neighbourhood where he chooses to live are too awful for his kids but ok for other local kids?
How to we ever change things...or do people just want to keep the status quo as long as they are all right?

crystaltipps summed up the situation re exams well in her post of 30th December and absent's question of the same day is relevant too.

One of DS' s friends too the Baccalaureate many years ago and then independent schools introduced the similar iGCSE more recently because the GCSEs were not rigorous enough and in fact the amount of coursework involved left the system wide open for 'cheating' by parents (as teachers I knew told me). Was that fair?

Parents who send their children to private schools are paying twice - through their taxes and through fees. If these schools were all taken over by the state would our taxes have to go up to pay for this?

Interesting isn't it that the principles behind the NHS are not applied to the education system. That we do not have an education service which supplies the same service for everyone. Why not? Now people with money can buy a better service and the free service struggles to cope with the most difficult children. Of course there are those working in public service jobs who will never be able to pay for their children's education, people like nurses, firefighters, bin men. All providing essential services and in some areas scarcely able to afford a house. The same areas where state schools are failing.
If people with money and influence had to send their children to the nearest state school standards would soon improve.

There is much that needs to be put right in this country but it's a darned sight better than any Marxist system I have heard about.

It would be wonderful if all state schools were excellent. However, human nature, as ever, intervenes. Parents have very varied attitudes to child rearing and very varied attitudes to priorities. Maybe its a UK thing or maybe its more of a universal aversion to being told what to do, what is the 'right' thing. Choice exists. It would be very worrying to remove it.
As to improving state schools, increase taxation? carry out all the various forms of social support that are talked about all the time, tackle gang culture, sort out drugs, so much to do before thinking of abolishing schools that just quietly get on with providing education for those who choose to prioritise it.

And governments have also created a system where some state funded schools can determine their own admissions criteria..so cost of homes in the vicinity of a school seen as successful rise so high that the area changes from being socially mixed communities to more middle class professional enclaves.

Jalima In Cuba the literacy rate is higher than in the US.