Private schools, times a changing?

My father was a council administrator, running education services. He sent both me and my brother to private secondary schools. He had two main reasons:

1. All the heads effectively reported to him. He didn't want any conflicts of interest, accusations of favouritism or his sons being used as pawns in any discussions.
2. He didn't get give the resources he asked for by the (Labour) council.

He was formally censured in council meetings and was denied a promotion.

Later, one of the Labour councillors came and asked him for recommendations on private schools for her children.

I always like seeing those on the left using private schools and private healthcare. Proves the concept and also proves their hypocrisy.

What is sad is that the spiteful Blair government scrapped the assisted place scheme which was a great example of opportunity. We had some amazingly intelligent kids come to my school who were given the opportunity to excel and not get swallowed up in the mediocrity of a comp.

That would be the first thing I would bring back. Many schools including mine do private sponsorship of children like this.

Very true, state schools seem to only do part time hours. No wonder kids end up hanging around, getting bored then causing trouble.

Well, yes and no. I made the same point myself some time ago. Wealthy parents have little incentive to see state education improve.

However, governments are rarely good at delivering stuff. Pretty much everything they do performs poorly, is riddled with inefficiency, delivers poor vfm, has a demoralised workforce. Without a private sector benchmark, it becomes difficult to see how badly something is failing.

The hours of schools I’ve visited so far haven’t been much different to state.

Similar hours (though they have more after school activities), with smaller groups learning becomes more effective. Example, junior year 1, but if you consider the cohort size (number of students) and some of the subjects they start to learn, it really makes a big difference. Imagine a year 1, started to learn basic arithmetic, geometry or statistics in much smaller group with targeted focus from tutors and less distraction. Not to mention, the homework checks and progress update is much more efficient in smaller groups, unlike big groups in comp, they might just get lost.Not to mention if there are 1-2 students making a disruption in that big group, which is totally normal but that's where "average" delivery becomes a fallacy.

That might have some effect, but it would be marginal.

You'd still get good/bad schools in different catchment areas, with house prices in the good areas climbing ever higher, so the wealthy parents would only end up improving the schools their kids went to. Of course you could choose to distribute school places not based on catchment areas - randomly assigning school places across a much wider area rather than sending kids to their nearest school - but that's hardly very environmentally friendly and I suspect would lead to a massive increase in 'home schooling' i.e. wealthy parents paying for private tutors.

Overall, these utopias are impossible to engineer* and wealthy parents are going to confer advantage to their offspring whatever system is in place, whether that is by house prices around the best schools, use of tutors, having more books/resources in the house, etc.

Personally I think abolishing private schools and/or discriminating against pupils from private school is crazy. That said, I don't think most private schools deserve their charitable status and wouldn't object hugely if that were removed. However, one then has to accept that will be the end of scholarships for kids who wouldn't otherwise be able to go there, no more use of their facilities by state school pupils, etc.

*I lived in the USA (St. Louis) in the early 90s and there was a programme/trial there (St. Louis) to try to integrate kids from the best state schools with kids from the worst, the theory being that the kids from the good schools would have a positive effect on the underperforming schools they were forced to attend, whilst troubled kids from under performing schools would benefit from what they learned (in the general sense) from time at a 'good' school, then bring that back with them. In practice all that happened was that (in part due to pressure from parents) the 'good' schools sent their 'worst' kids to the 'bad' schools (damage limitation) whilst the 'bad' schools sent their brightest and best (who they thought would benefit most from the opportunity) to the good schools. So overall, the good schools just got better and the bad schools got worse.

Where's your eldest starting? My son started at Tunbridge Wells Boys Grammar in September and loves it. Had him down for Sutton Valance too, but so glad we didn't have to go the private route.

Mine went to Dauntseys outside Devizes, we were very please with it.

Recently worked in a private boarding school and it really opened up my eyes to the difference between state and private.

The education was obviously better but the opportunity for different after school activities was amazing. The grounds and building was absolutely stunning too so was a fantastic place to live and learn.

Interesting to note though that while talking to a director he said he had a lot of students that only came for one term then moved back to state school and it was only so they could have the school on their C.V. Even though these kids might be not be very bright they’re parents having money ensures they have more opportunities which I thought was quite sad.