also live near a village where the local economy is boosted by the presence of an independent school and have personally benefitted from this.
That's another red herring. There are about 30 schools within the Eton and Rugby groups that form the major public schools today, beneath which there is a broad array of fee paying independent Schools. The wiki entry is quite good, especially on the links to the aristocracy and the ruling class
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)
i think it's easy to classify privately educated families as being privileged. I think it is true that some are but the majority of families are from taxi drivers, shop owners and ordinary workers who want to spend a higher portion of their income to educate their children. Many people struggle to put their kids through because they do not have a good school nearby.
The problem with that is the nearby school never becomes 'a good school'. Being coached to the exam paper in a public school doesn't necessarily mean those kids are getting a better education either...
You are moving the goalposts ...why would you care if the 'over privileged ' are not getting a "better education" ?
You like the sound of your own voice today I was adressing the point that @philiphifi was making about people scrimping and saving to buy their kids what they perceive to be a better education. This is a part of the con trick of these Schools.
I taught for 20 odd years at a Russell Group university and I have seen all sorts let me tell you.
Odd way to look at it. Who is running this 'con'?
Designing a mechanical 24-hour clock would be like designing an electric car with a starting handle. You could but why would you?
OK I get your point but in education, there are several simple measures to evaluate the final product.The con is the belief that you are buying into a better education. It must be better because you've paid good money for it - it's the same kind of thing as people wanting to read good reviews of other luxuries that they've bought into, smartphones, hifi, cars whatever it might be...
OK I get your point but in education, there are several simple measures to evaluate the final product.
How are exam results?
How is the child?
How much 'extra' has that system added to their abilities? (Music, Trips, Sport, Drama etc)
and finally, have they left achieving all the things they wanted to?
There are 32000 schools in UK.
Of them 2400 are independent.
Adding back the 500,000 students, many with special needs, would place a significant extra load on the already over burdened and often underfunded state sector.
if the kids of MPs were put into the underfunded state sector, you can be yer’arse it won’t stay underfunded for long
Just because somebody has been heavily coached in how to pass an exam
I voted to ban.
I think it's unacceptable that some kids get an advantage over other kids. There should at least be an attempt to have a level playing field.
At the very least, there should be no tax free status for what are businesses.
If this increases the funding requirements for state schools, then it should be funded, through increases in income tax if necessary.
*I send my kid to a fee paying school.
I agree that in an ideal world school would be a level playing field,