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UK spending power 'in heavy fall'

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Comments

  • neverdespairgirl
    neverdespairgirl Posts: 16,501 Forumite
    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 that's something that really varies according to the school. My secondary was very low on emphasis on make-up, clothes, and possessions. It was great.
    ...much enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at last Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'.
  • lostinrates
    lostinrates Posts: 55,283 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    I think that's something that really varies according to the school. My secondary was very low on emphasis on make-up, clothes, and possessions. It was great.

    NDG, I think we are not far off the same age. :confused: Thing is, when I was a kid when we DID try make up and fashion, we still go it wrong:confused: , badly wrong which was in retrospect funny and sweet and innocent. Kids now look stunning and adult when they are in their early tens and going through that same experimentation. They seem to have a deeper, inate, more adult appreciation of things, but have lost that period of no presure over that sort of stuff. I'm sure it does vary school to school (and mine sounds somewhat like yours) but th difference now and then in the same school is apparent. I spent some time at an old girls day discussing this with teachers -in fact I said that I thought it must be my perception changed as an adult, but they concurred.
  • MissMoneypenny
    MissMoneypenny Posts: 5,324 Forumite
    I was at a private school in south London, because the state secondaries were so absolutely dire.

    Newstead Wood School and St Olaves (both grammars) are both in south London and have been at the top of the league tables for as many years as I can remember. The former is mentioned in the Good Schools Guide.
    RENTING? Have you checked to see that your landlord has permission from their mortgage lender to rent the property? If not, you could be thrown out with very little notice.
    Read the sticky on the House Buying, Renting & Selling board.


  • jamescredmond
    jamescredmond Posts: 1,061 Forumite
    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.
    this, sadly, was my experience 30 yrs ago.

    a small majority of my years' intake arrived fresh from prep school.
    the rest of us came from state schools of varying quality.

    and boy! did the staff make it clear as to which group they favoured!

    that said, the blatant bias and petty snobbery didn't harm my exam results.

    but all this was a long time ago, and my loathing of the grammar system has faded.

    are you saying that grammars still offer 'a furtherance of private education by other means', courtesy of the council tax-payer?

    I hope not.
    miladdo
  • MissMoneypenny
    MissMoneypenny Posts: 5,324 Forumite
    !!!!!!? wrote: »
    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.

    Top primary schools are oversubscribed. Not all schools will be doing what your school did.

    It is strange how the SATS tests were brought out to see how well teachers were performing, yet have been neatly pushed onto how well the children are performing:confused:
    !!!!!!? wrote: »
    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.

    Parents seem to be able to buy themselves good A level results for their children, so why not 11+? What happened with Harry would not have been a one off.
    RENTING? Have you checked to see that your landlord has permission from their mortgage lender to rent the property? If not, you could be thrown out with very little notice.
    Read the sticky on the House Buying, Renting & Selling board.


  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    !!!!!!? wrote: »
    So you're saying the test is diabolically hard and no normal 11 year old could do it?

    No, I'm saying it has little educational value. For the hours put into passing it, the kids learn very little. Kids can be trained to pass the current 11+ , the more training the more they are likely to pass....but for all the effort it advances their real knowledge very little.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    !!!!!!? wrote: »
    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.

    this is exactly what is going on in the few areas that have Grammar schools. Below average kids who were tutored always got into Grammar schools. The tutoring that goes on now is way way beyond anything that you will have experienced. However, there are only a small number of these schools in existence, the vast majority of High Schools in the UK are mixed ability schools and they provide the vast majority of Uni students (even at the top Unis) and to deride these High Schools as rubbish is absurd
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    fc123 wrote: »
    And that cost us about £160k in school fees......

    This is nothing personal (as I enjoy most of your posts) and I have argued this elsewhere on MSE but I think this is an absurd amount of money to pay for a few GCSEs and A levels.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    are you saying that grammars still offer 'a furtherance of private education by other means', courtesy of the council tax-payer?

    I hope not.

    This is exactly what is going on in the few areas where there are Grammar schools left. However, I must reiterate that there are only a few boroughs that still have a Grammar school system. They are just free private schools.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • lostinrates
    lostinrates Posts: 55,283 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    This is nothing personal (as I enjoy most of your posts) and I have argued this elsewhere on MSE but I think this is an absurd amount of money to pay for a few GCSEs and A levels.

    I would agree, but I don't think thats all I got out of my private school:confused:
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