UK spending power 'in heavy fall'

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

Stardust77 wrote: »

As for grammars, we have 2 nearby in Essex. The kids within the council catchment have to pass at 86%, the kids from any other catchment have to pass at 93%.

The majority of primaries around here don't teach the entire curriculum (seem to be missing verbal and non-verbal reasoning) and certainly dont promote the 11+ in any shape or form, so if you wanted your child to go to grammar, you need the money to pay for tuition. Then when your child's lucky enough to pass, the schools are so over-subscribed they find themselves at the comprehensive school anyway!

Nearly all the remaining Grammar Schools in the UK are filled with kids who go to private prep schools. Their parents see Grammar schools as FREE private schools and invest in private primaries because they have worked out it's cheaper (very MSE:rolleyes:). The few that get in from state primaries have years of tuition for the test (which is frankly a pointless test so is off no real value to a child- so all those hours of tuition are actually a complete waste of time). The child that passes the 11+ without years of expensive tuition is as rare as hen's teeth.

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

fc123 wrote: »

This is absolute clap trap. You either live in one of those nicey nicey areas of Middle England that have absolutely no concept of life in a dodgy suburb or you are an Ofsted inspector.
We lived in Grotsville (which is exp BTW) and both our kids attended state primaries. 1st pulled out at age 8. 2nd had to go all the way to 11 as we could not afford double fees (~we had a 7 yr gap in ages).

My good friend, the most fervant socialist in the world (and a top acacdemic in her field plus Prof hubby) just pulled their 13 yr old out of the 'best' state school in the borough. I would love to post her letter on here to the head. Her older son is about to leave with pretty much zilch qualifications.
As she put it' Our child has been sacrificed on the alter of state education'.....or some such emotional phrase.

Her kids had a good,, stable homelife with a decent set of genes that should have got them somewhere at this stage in their lives.

I'm sorry to hear of the experience of you and your friends. I could counter with many anecdotes of people who have had a !!!!!! time in the private sector ( and paid good money for the experience:o) and at grammar schools in the past and present but I'm not sure it would move the debate any further forward.....

All the Best

BFTE

maryotuam

My daughter went to the local comprehensive and got four A's including physics and maths. She turned her nose up at Oxford or Cambridge and got a 2.1 in Maths at York.
My son didn't do so well academically but that's because he is only interested in songriting and forming a pop band. I think an average to above average child will do fine in a good comprehensive.

neverdespairgirl

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

Not all schools are large these days - though I would agree that the majority are. Despite that the kids that attend them enjoy them.

Just because you had a lovely time at school doesn't mean that your peers were having such a great time in the sink school secondary mod down the road.

Funny you hear folk say "Bring back Grammars", you never hear them say "Bring back Secondary Moderns":rolleyes:

I was at a private school in south London, because the state secondaries were so absolutely dire.

As far as large schools are concerned, I thought the consensus was, now, that they aren't a great idea?

neverdespairgirl

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

Fine - was she any good at Art? Music? Design and technology? Drama? Geography? History? RE? Sociology?

Nearly all of us have strengths and weaknesses and large numbers of highly "intelligent" people who changed the world were carp at school and left with no qualifications.

Yes, to all of the above. If I didn't like her so much, it might be irritating (-:

She played piano and violin, acted in the Footlights at Cambridge - she is the original all-round genius.

Exception - sociology. Didn't do it at our school.

neverdespairgirl

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

This is just carp, nobody has ever been able to produce any real evidence to back up these claims.

I got Bs in both German and Latin GCSEs. I looked, at the time, at my mother's O level papers in both languages, and they were, without a doubt, very much harder.

moneysaving_pharmacist

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

Nearly all the remaining Grammar Schools in the UK are filled with kids who go to private prep schools. Their parents see Grammar schools as FREE private schools and invest in private primaries because they have worked out it's cheaper (very MSE:rolleyes:). The few that get in from state primaries have years of tuition for the test (which is frankly a pointless test so is off no real value to a child- so all those hours of tuition are actually a complete waste of time). The child that passes the 11+ without years of expensive tuition is as rare as hen's teeth.

Do you have any figures to back that up? In the Medway Towns there is only one private primary school, which is attached to a private secondary school, but there are five grammar schools and one comp with a grammar intake. I passed the 11+ in 93/94 and my sister passed in 2000/01, both with no tution, so there's a couple of hen's teeth for you.

WTF?_2

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

Nearly all the remaining Grammar Schools in the UK are filled with kids who go to private prep schools. Their parents see Grammar schools as FREE private schools and invest in private primaries because they have worked out it's cheaper (very MSE:rolleyes:). The few that get in from state primaries have years of tuition for the test (which is frankly a pointless test so is off no real value to a child- so all those hours of tuition are actually a complete waste of time). The child that passes the 11+ without years of expensive tuition is as rare as hen's teeth.

So you're saying the test is diabolically hard and no normal 11 year old could do it?

Sounds like rubbish to me. I and many of my peers passed it when we were kidsand we certainly had years of expensive tuition all right - at my state primary school.

The 7th year teachers did volunteer their own time to give the entire final year an hour's worth of extra lessons every day in the weeks prior to the test though.

And expensive lessons can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You make it sound like well off parents are simply buying a pass for the 11+ which is ridiculous. If their kids aren't up to scratch no amount of tuition is going to get them there. Unless of course the basic level of state education is so bad that it's damaging regular kids learning to the extent where a below average 'tutored' kid could beat a smart but state-educated kid.

lostinrates

The state secondary nearest my private school was actually ok and I longed to go there, but to be fair, my school had a wider range of subjects and extra curricular, and I needed to board. also, the results were better, as a parent I can see how that is hard to argue with. My DH (not educted in UK) says its not state private that makes a difference to him, but that he would not want a daughter in particular brought up with the pressure to grow up too quickly he feels is prevelant in UK. He's fairly sure if we had a daughter he would want her secondary education in boarding if necessary, abroad.

I think its hard to compare now and then, in context of state versus private because there have been so many variables effecting all kids, which ever system they go through....part of the Big Brother syndrome.

fc123

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

I'm sorry to hear of the experience of you and your friends. I could counter with many anecdotes of people who have had a !!!!!! time in the private sector ( and paid good money for the experience:o) and at grammar schools in the past and present but I'm not sure it would move the debate any further forward.....

All the Best

BFTE

Nothing wrong with anecdotal at all....in fact that's what counts sometimes. All this generalising doesn't give the true picture.
Mr + Mrs Individual base everything on personal experience not of on a set of generalised, average statistics and wooly Govt protestations.

I had the misfortune to live in the worst achieving borough (in 2000 - 2004) in London which happened to be be the 3rd worst performing borough in the whole of the UK.

And that cost us about £160k in school fees......