Schools, the good, the bad and the ugly.

from the "Squirming" thread.....

another throw-back to school days?

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.

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.

>>It's a hard choice.

Its not really, its a financial choice. Actually, that can of course be hard.

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*

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.

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.