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Post by Humph on Dec 13, 2016 19:58:00 GMT
My brother and I broke a family tradition by sending our children to state schools. My grandfather had a private education, indeed he went on to become a teacher in the private sector, and my father, my brother and I were all privately educated.
My brother ( much older than me ) chose to send his kids to the local comp and in turn so did I. His children both went on to successful adult lives and careers and my son, soon to be 17, also seems to be doing well. He's a well rounded, articulate and intelligent young man who has thrived in the state education system, and hopefully he in turn will go on to do something he enjoys, which will financially provide for his adult life.
I'm certainly not anti private education, and I can see and appreciate that there are children, families and circumstances that benefit greatly from its availability, but in truth I think there are many other ways you can give a young person a good start in life with or without it.
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Post by tyrednexited on Dec 13, 2016 20:07:50 GMT
from the "Squirming" thread..... ..............perhaps we can continue this discussion over in the "bar" ?.............. another throw-back to school days?
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Post by Humph on Dec 13, 2016 20:14:59 GMT
Could be !
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2016 21:35:25 GMT
I went to state primary, both excellent, then via the 11+ to a Grammar (unutterably awful) from which I was eventually expelled and so returned to state secondary, which was pretty good.
My children go to private schools and have never been to state schools. It is horribly, horribly expensive. Not just the fees which are ugly enough, but all the stuff that goes with it. However, I strongly believe that if you have the money you should put your children through the private system. Even a phenomenal state school with the best teachers on the planet simply will not have the resources and infrastructure.
>>, but in truth I think there are many other ways you can give a young person a good start in life
Absolutely. But its not an either/or situation.
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Post by Humph on Dec 13, 2016 22:01:17 GMT
Not many things in life are an either/or situation. Much as that would sometimes be convenient. We all make choices, or have them made for us, or indeed sometimes things just happen to us in life that make us who we are and what we become. Having been through the system I can of course see and appreciate the benefits, but I'm also very clear as to its downsides too. A grey area indeed.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Dec 13, 2016 22:09:56 GMT
I confess to feeling a smidge of envy when I see the difference - make that gulf - in facilities between even a top-notch state school like the one my sons attend and the private schools from which my - their - cricket club draws much of its junior membership. Having attended a (very minor) private secondary school myself, I can see that the difference is not in the classrooms but in the extracurricular activities and the depth of resources the paid sector has to support them. My two need have no complaints - their school puts them right at the top of the 93% that don't pay fees - but Otto is right that there is a whole tier of opportunity above that for those whose parents can afford it.
And I wish it weren't so. Inequality of opportunity is a dreadful thing and causes a huge waste of talent as capable young people without rich or pushy parents end up being merely managed by overworked teachers whose targets require them to focus on the borderline cases at the expense of the potential high flyers. Difficult as it undoubtedly is, there must be a way to level that playing field by raising the bottom without lowering the top.
I've got over my own cognitive dissonance over preferring a comprehensive system over selection, yet sending my children to the selective school across the county boundary thus: my duties as a parent and as a voter are to two different groups. At the micro scale, the only responsible thing I can do for my children is to send them to the best school that will have them. I've no doubt that is the school they're at now, although it might equally be a private one if I had the income to make it want me as a customer. But on the macro scale, as a voter, I want to help to shape a society in which one parent doesn't have to elbow aside another to secure an educational advantage for their child. Those two are quite compatible, and any priggish tabloid journalist who wishes to pour scorn on a politician who makes the best micro decision while also advocating the best macro one might like to thing it through.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2016 22:32:34 GMT
This is very hard because despite hating my grammar school it is obvious that I did learn many things at a far higher level than my boys who do and did go to the extremely good local faith comprehensive. They have far better exam results than me, but their general breadth of knowledge is less. Hence I have a broader range of conversation. It helps in business.
The school the boys went/go to (and my 12yo daughter) is in the top ten state schools in the country but a few friends have chosen to pay to send to Alma Maters which I think says more about their bank balance than anything else as several pupils from our school have gone on to get very good degrees from good universities.
It's a hard choice. If the school was poor then the choice would be obvious - fee paying. But it helps that the school streams from day one and tries to push the brightest children. There is no stigma in working hard. If all comprehensive schools were like this there would be no education crisis, but as it is the school is losing grant money because it is so good, to give money to worse performing schools. Crazy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2016 22:48:40 GMT
>>It's a hard choice.
Its not really, its a financial choice. Actually, that can of course be hard.
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Post by iancapetown on Dec 14, 2016 5:55:04 GMT
...from which I was eventually expelled .... Go on, 'fess up! What did you do?
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Post by Alanović on Dec 14, 2016 9:43:39 GMT
Blimey, am I the only Comprehensive school boy on here? Mine was the other side of the coin to Humph's - we were on the opposite bank of the river from THE most prestigious public school in the world (I'd refused to take the scholarship exam for that school whilst I was at a prep school, and begged my parents to let me go to the local comp, so tired was I of the bullying and abuse of several types from both pupils and staff in my prep school and terrified of worse at boarding school), and the 'hard' lads from our place used to nip over there for larks and chuck the other lot in the drink when the chance arose. More common though were organised punch-ups at the local bus station with the rival comp from the next town. Seriously, probably the happiest days of my life and I made a great group of friends, who are my best mates to this day. We're all getting together with wives/girlfriends etc this weekend for the annual Christmas bash. I achieved good A Levels there, and a place at a 'red brick' (now Russell Group) university, as did all of use who had a modicum of ability. My only problem was that I chose a soppy subject to study rather than one with a proper career at the end of it, and that's my fault and no-one else's.
Private schooling is a bit of a bone of contention to me now. I don't favour it, the wife does. Guess where our children go? Private. I would argue OK's point about it not being either/or. It is either/or for us, because it's absolutely marginal as to whether we can afford it or not. We can, just. But this means there's nothing in the pot every month for a bit of savings and investments (or a new air spring for the rear suspension), which is the alternative thing one can do with disposable income in order to help children launch in to their adult life after education, especially these days with property being so expensive not just to buy, but to even rent. So for us, it is either/or, and we've (she's) chosen private school. Time will tell if it's the right decision.
Perhaps my personal experience of education ahs coloured my opinion - I hated my private prep school, I loved my comprehensive senior school and thrived. *shrugs*
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Post by Humph on Dec 14, 2016 10:32:21 GMT
I'm a bit out of touch with the costs of private education now. What is the sort of annual figure per child these days?
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Post by Alanović on Dec 14, 2016 10:39:35 GMT
It varies a bit. We're in for over 12k per child at the moment, and they're not even in senior school yet. This is day school. Top public schools are around £30k+ per annum. Reasonable lesser schools which we're looking at for senior schooling in the 10-15k range.
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Post by Hofmeister on Dec 14, 2016 11:00:45 GMT
Blimey, am I the only Comprehensive school boy on here? No. Comprehensive school in Essex lad here*. Private schools were a long way away from us, being a strictly working class east end overspill area. My opinion? State schools will still provide a first class education to bright pupils who are prepared to work. Private schools provide much more to those in the middle, and neither will do anyfink to drag the lower reaches up. *I was lucky, being a child of the 60s, we had the opportunity to do as well, or as badly as we wanted and still earn good dosh.
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Post by WDB on Dec 14, 2016 12:29:12 GMT
Gross up those school fees to show what you'd actually need to earn to have enough left after tax to pay them and they look even more scary, especially if you double them.
Knowing what I earn - although I'm the only significant earner in our household - and that our £1,000 a month mortgage payment is probably on the low side of typical here, it makes you wonder what other people earn to make it possible. I suppose a model similar to the one my parents devised, which amounted to living on what my dad earned and devoting my mum's income from part-time hospital doctoring to two sets of fees and the car she required for work. I suppose a £50,000 second income would do that today, so a dual-professional household would cope. Like Vić today, though, they endured a period without lavish holidays or home improvements (although I suspect they'd be horrified at what housing costs today) and new but basic Renault cars.
I hated bits of my school, and certainly didn't like its social pretensions - although many of my classmates were from similar backgrounds to mine, with parents who'd made tough choices in order to afford it. I came out of it with a decent set of A-levels, which led on to a Russell Group degree in a proper subject - and this was largely thanks to two teachers who got me to actually - y'know - work when my natural ability abruptly ran out in lower sixth. Whether I'd have got that same personal focus elsewhere, I'll never know for certain.
Where the boys are now has many of the good aspects of my school, with far fewer of the bad ones. It is overwhelmingly middle class, though - as Commerdriver can probably attest - and while this makes it comfortable by keeping the rough kids segregated at the other end of town, it's hard to forget that this amounts to state-sponsored privilege. The macro-micro conflict again.
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Post by Alanović on Dec 14, 2016 12:52:56 GMT
My feelings, being perfectly frank, are that the value for money is only marginal at best. It's a f*ck load of money for two children from reception to age 18 (then university too these days). And it's the same exams at the end, same qualifications. If the kid's good and has a modicum of motivation, then how much different can the outcome be? We're looking at sinking 500k in to this over the years, roughly. If that uplifts an A level grade one notch, is that value for money? I suppose we'll never know.
But I do know that if I invest 500k over 18 years, I'll have a bit more than that to dish out at the end to get them started in the real world. It's funny this subject should crop up on here today, we had a bit of a domestic in-depth about it last night...... What happened to us was that the horses got scared. Son sat 11+ last year and passed. But. There's only one oversubscribed Grammar school here and, guess what, more children passed than they had places for. We were one of 40 families whose child passed but missed out. This set the Mrs in to a panic, as she'd been assuming he'd get in. Where previously she was happy with the local comp as back up (it's good and sends children to Oxbridge every year), she got frit and reverted to insisting on private.
And this is before I get in to any of the social and macro arguments as you call it, WDB.
Hey ho. God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change............
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