If money was no issue would you send your kids to a fees school?

[ViolentPanda]

They have entrance exams, like all private schools.

Nah, loads of 'em admit by interview.

 

[frogwoman]

I suspect that in some cases these "private schools" are actually those few remnants of the "special schools" network that didn't allow themselves to be closed down, and became "fee-paying" to preserve the service, the "fee" being the amount per head the LEA is obliged to spend per pupil.
I don't support private schooling, but some parents of special needs children are caught between a rock and a hard place, especially as (as has been emerging in Private Eye recently) some schools are taking the extra money garnered to cover SEN and not buying in the services for SN pupils for it, but using it elsewhere to pad their budgets.

yep.

 

[frogwoman]

Nah, loads of 'em admit by interview.

and some are non selective (well sort of). our school got quite a few kids who didn't pass the 11+ because it was non selective. (although there were some weird systems in place)

 

[_angel_]

and some are non selective (well sort of). our school got quite a few kids who didn't pass the 11+ because it was non selective. (although there were some weird systems in place)

There's always got to be somewhere for nice-but-dim kids to go to.

 

[frogwoman]

There's always got to be somewhere for nice-but-dim kids to go to.

 

[frogwoman]

and i can personally attest to that schools crap handling of special needs, for myself and a number of others. i'd rather fucking die than send any kid of mine there. absolutely serious btw.

slag them off all you want. the cunts.

 

[_angel_]

I suspect that in some cases these "private schools" are actually those few remnants of the "special schools" network that didn't allow themselves to be closed down, and became "fee-paying" to preserve the service, the "fee" being the amount per head the LEA is obliged to spend per pupil.
I don't support private schooling, but some parents of special needs children are caught between a rock and a hard place, especially as (as has been emerging in Private Eye recently) some schools are taking the extra money garnered to cover SEN and not buying in the services for SN pupils for it, but using it elsewhere to pad their budgets.

Is special needs provision really this woeful in other parts of the country?
I think Leeds is comparatively good. In a side note they are not trying to close down all special schools as they were a few years ago - at least not in Leeds. In fact in general they need more school places both special and 'normal'.
They could still spend a lot more money on doing inclusion properly, but I think they now realise that it's not the money saver they thought it would be. To do it right costs just as much as a special school setting would and they seem to have gone very quiet about it now.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is special needs provision really this woeful in other parts of the country?
I think Leeds is comparatively good. In a side note they are not trying to close down all special schools as they were a few years ago - at least not in Leeds. In fact in general they need more school places both special and 'normal'.
They could still spend a lot more money on doing inclusion properly, but I think they now realise that it's not the money saver they thought it would be. To do it right costs just as much as a special school setting would and they seem to have gone very quiet about it now.

I can think of 4 special schools within a 5 mile radius of that have shut in the last 15 years, and one that went "private" in order to stay open. Not for lack of pupils, but because of the shift of emphasis to providing each child with a "rounded" experience of education. That's fine if they also learn the specifics that will help them to circumvent the effects of their impairment, but where this doesn't happen (and the horror stories of missing provision are accumulating ), there are kids who would otherwise be able to manage the educational mainstream later in life missing out on learning those specifics because some headmaster decides to use a bit of the SN budget to re-decorate his office.

 

[_angel_]

I can think of 4 special schools within a 5 mile radius of that have shut in the last 15 years, and one that went "private" in order to stay open. Not for lack of pupils, but because of the shift of emphasis to providing each child with a "rounded" experience of education. That's fine if they also learn the specifics that will help them to circumvent the effects of their impairment, but where this doesn't happen (and the horror stories of missing provision are accumulating ), there are kids who would otherwise be able to manage the educational mainstream later in life missing out on learning those specifics because some headmaster decides to use a bit of the SN budget to re-decorate his office.

How can they get away with this, although just typing this I can imagine in London where there are more affluent parents they would. No matter how much money you have in Leeds there's less fee paying schools than there are down south.
I do wonder what the provision would been like if we'd stayed at Oxford... Cameron's son went to a state special school IIRC.

FWIW I do know of someone in London who has a kid with autism who sends them to a private special school, didn't occur to me that there just might not be the provision.

 

[purenarcotic]

Nah, loads of 'em admit by interview.

I had both entrance exams and interviews. I wonder whether area plays a role too though.

 

[purenarcotic]

and i can personally attest to that schools crap handling of special needs, for myself and a number of others. i'd rather fucking die than send any kid of mine there. absolutely serious btw.

slag them off all you want. the cunts.

See ours were pretty good at that. We had a specialist SEN tutor who used to do weekly sessions for each pupil identified as having some sort of need i.e. dyslexia and she would recommend support plans for lessons / homework which were implemented immediately.

With SEN stuff it seems to be pot luck, whether you're state or private how good the support is. You just hope you're lucky and the school takes it seriously.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I had both entrance exams and interviews. I wonder whether area plays a role too though.

I've heard of cases in south London where exams have become interviews and vice versa depending on how the parents presented themselves. I haven't been a governor for a long while, but I hear stuff that pisses me right off.

 

[purenarcotic]

I've heard of cases in south London where exams have become interviews and vice versa depending on how the parents presented themselves. I haven't been a governor for a long while, but I hear stuff that pisses me right off.

That's just ridiculous. And also ime, regardless of the wrongs of private school in itself, very unfair on those who have had to do both exams and interviews.

It'd be like turning up to a job interview and getting the job because you have a designer suit on ffs.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's just ridiculous. And also ime, regardless of the wrongs of private school in itself, very unfair on those who have had to do both exams and interviews.

It'd be like turning up to a job interview and getting the job because you have a designer suit on ffs.

TBF I think you're missing just how badly many schools want to insulate themselves from adverse results and inspections. Some heads will pull all sorts of strokes as a matter of course.
That they can pull such stunts to do so, and get away with it, makes it all the more important that such abuses stop, because a school surreptitiously selecting its' intake in such a way then puts an unfair burden on the other schools in the area

 

[Streathamite]

also like it or not, a private school or nursery is a business and the goal of a business is to make money. they may say they've got the best interests of the kids at heart but at the end of the day its still all about money, at least for the people who own the school, not necessarily the teachers.

tbh, their real goal is to perpetuate the class privileges of their own - eg the parents who send their kids there

 

[Streathamite]

Didn't know that - I thought that money talked. Other than the financial aspect how do they exclude? Are they selective on the basis of education achievement or do you have to be invited (like the bar for barristers).

by social acceptability

 

[Streathamite]

I had both entrance exams and interviews. I wonder whether area plays a role too though.

of course it does, how many publick skools are based in deprived inner city areas, and how many have any sort of serious intake from such areas? The answer is "very few", in both cases

 

[Sweetpea]

of course it does, how many publick skools are based in deprived inner city areas, and how many have any sort of serious intake from such areas? The answer is "very few", in both cases

Is that area of the applicant or area of the school?

There are public schools in deprived inner city areas. The whole of the Dulwich crew (Dulwich College, Allyens, and JAGs ) are in Southwark. Their intake from such areas is high (as they are not boarding schools) but I would agree that their intake from non privileged homes is in the minority.

 

[toggle]

That's just ridiculous. And also ime, regardless of the wrongs of private school in itself, very unfair on those who have had to do both exams and interviews.

any kid that couldn't cope with the exam and interview process would probably be chewed into little pieces by the shit they would get at school.

 

[Streathamite]

There are public schools in deprived inner city areas. The whole of the Dulwich crew (Dulwich College, Allyens, and JAGs ) are in Southwark. Their intake from such areas is high (as they are not boarding schools) but I would agree that their intake from non privileged homes is in the minority.

Of course they are in the minority, but I think you'd have to REALLY stretch facts to describe West dulwich as a 'deprived inner city area'! Just as Harrow town and wealdstone have many areas of deprivation, but Harrow school, a stone's throw away, is in excruciatingly snooty harrow-on-the-hill

 

[romeo2001]

It'd be like turning up to a job interview and getting the job because you have a designer suit on ffs.

but thats the reality tho - you are more likely to get a job in some professions if you wear a designer suit

 

[Mr Moose]

Bump to reflect on the 'news' that the man who wrote 'Eton Rifles' sends his kids to 'Private School'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/11/paul-weller-happiness-sonik-kicks

 

[weltweit]

Bump to reflect on the 'news' that the man who wrote 'Eton Rifles' sends his kids to 'Private School'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/11/paul-weller-happiness-sonik-kicks

Now that I would not have expected.

 

[Mr Moose]

The more often I hear it the less I like men with lots of kids.
Paul = 5
Nick Griffin = 4
Keith Allen = 6.

Put a fucking sock on it.