Music Scholarships for Independent Schools, Do they encourage child abuse? Options

[FullofWind]

If this thread cannot return to topic (thanks Scooby Doo for the attempt) maybe it should be quietly closed or removed.

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Is it too elitist Tonedeafmum! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[Alicia Ocean]

If this thread cannot return to topic (thanks Scooby Doo for the attempt) maybe it should be quietly closed or removed.

Aw no. Don't close my thread. I love that it rambles on in all directions. We're all learning new ideas too.

My own experience is outlined in several posts here. I have a few children - each with different experiences in state, grammar and independent schools - and I agree particularly with ....

FullofWind -

The biggest problem with state schools is that a lot of the teachers are very anti-elitist. The vast majority are socialist and with that often (note I say often) comes an anti-elitist attitude, although it shouldn't. Even in areas where there are 11+ schools it is often frowned on by teachers who do nothing to help a child to pass the test or even bring it to a parents attention that their child may be capable of passing. Private schools are not the problem, but an anti-elitist culture is. Self-belief and self-confidence are not promoted or even discussed. I wonder if it's even part of teacher training!"

and Swellbox -

The rush to abolish Grammar Schools in favour of ubiquitous 'comprehensives' was one of the biggest mistakes of any government in my view. Grammar schools provided almost unlimited opportunities and social mobility for bright children from all backgrounds, regardless of their parents ability to pay, whilst the 'Technical' schools were much better suited to those with more practical abilities.

I am sure that comprehensive schools could be perfectly good if those in charge had the will to ensure that every child's abilities were developed to the full. Instead, the lefty-liberal element in state education has made it fashionable to 'level the playing field', and to 'dumb down' the learning process to that of the lowest common denominator, whilst bright children are expected to sit at the back of class and read.

[Chris H]

If this thread cannot return to topic (thanks Scooby Doo for the attempt) maybe it should be quietly closed or removed.

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Is it too elitist Tonedeafmum! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Oh for Pete's sake TDM, when have you been so bothered about going off topic? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

My own experience of state comprehensives is that they have nurtured and encouraged bright children and celebrated achievement. Not expecting high standards of ALL children is patronising and doing them a serious disservice.

[jonathanquinn]

No, I do not want us to live in a dictatorship, but we do not just have a choice between the status quo and North Korea.

It is unfortunate that those posting here seem to have experience the very worst of comprehensive education. I attended a comprehensive school and, though I have some very specific complaints about it (my biggest grumble is the absence of Greek and Latin from the syllabus and the school's refusal to allow me to learn any modern language other than German), I think that it was a very good school. Certainly there was elitism, if one must call it that. Our rugby and hockey teams were the best, or among the best, in the county, in part thanks to the head of PE being a former England international hockey captain. Our tennis team one year was the best in the whole of the UK. A series of strictly competitive sports days were held every year.

A minor prize giving ceremony was held at the end of every term, at which sports colours were awarded alongside the smaller academic prizes. A major prize giving was held once a year where the bigger prizes were awarded for academic achievement, sport, music, public speaking, community service, etc. One year the prizes were given by Graham Zellick, and one cannot really get much more elite than that. I remember that he wore his academic dress as a University of London Doctor of Science. The teachers wore gowns and hoods for prize giving, gowns only for assembly.

Music at the school was excellent. We had two directors of music in my time, the first a brilliant Cambridge maths graduate, the second a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music who had known Benjamin Britten in a previous post at Wandsworth. We had two concert bands, the senior of which, together with the school chamber choir, provided music for the local remembrance day service at the war memorial, an orchestra, a dance band, chamber groups for strings, wind, brass, and percussion, and several choirs. Several concerts took place each term, the highlight of the year being a performance at a major concert hall, now discontinued only because the school has been rebuilt and now has its own concert hall. Ofsted inspectors described the school's musical achievements as approaching professional standards. The achievements of the music department were overshadowed only by those of the drama department, which staged productions every term, with the event of the year being a musical theatre production which, in my view, equalled, if not exceeded, standards that I have seen in the West End. And all this was done with boys with unbroken voices taking the female parts. Music and drama has now been reorganised into a single department of performing arts.

One boy a couple of years ahead of me went up to the Royal Northern College of Music on a scholarship, won many prizes, and did postgraduate study at the Guildhall before embarking upon a professional career as a recording artist and concert artist, including principal positions in various symphony orchestras. Another boy a couple of years below me also went to the RNCM and now has a career as a chamber musician. One of my exact contemporaries studied at Cambridge and the Royal Academy and already has a very impressive career as a conductor, including many performances at the Royal Opera House. Several others of my contemporaries studied at universities and conservatoires and have careers in music teaching and performance.

Academically, the school was truly comprehensive, with several boys in each year's intake with learning disabilities. In the VIth form intermediate and advanced GNVQ courses were offered alongside A-levels. About 20 percent of boys did not go on to university. Some boys did not do well. There were many expulsions for drug offences. A couple of boys ended up in prison for arson. Another is now serving an indefinite prison sentence for public protection after being convicted on nine charges of wounding with intent, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and assault by beating.

But there were eight academic streams and those in the higher streams often did very well. From my year alone three boys went to Oxford and one to Cambridge (personally I didn't think that Oxford was anything special, but I know that Oxbridge entry is frequently taken to be the gold standard of a school's academic success). One boy a couple of years ahead of me was accepted at Balliol for maths and philosophy and was, in the words of the admissions tutor, the most brilliant candidate that the college had ever accepted to read for that degree. Many others went to excellent universities such as UCL, King's, the LSE, SOAS, Nottingham, Warwick, and Durham. Those of whom I have kept track are now to be found in teaching, academia, law, medicine, the Church, the civil service, accountancy, architecture, banking, management consultancy, politics, the police, HM Forces (although we had only an Air Training Corps, and one boy did become an RAF officer, one boy got into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst), journalism, PR, music technology, film, photography, and acting.

It is inaccurate and offensive to suggest that state, and especially comprehensive, education reduces to the lowest common denominator. Schools such as mine, with resources and intake much inferior to those of schools in the independent, or even the selective state, sectors, are able to have high aspirations and enable their pupils to make considerable achievements in many areas of their lives. I do not think that I had the best possible education, but the state education sector has huge potential and were it properly managed and resourced it could make private education redundant. As things stand, it is, as I have already said, clearly unfair that those who can pay, or who can obtain one of a small number of scholarships, are able to access a truly excellent standard of education that is unavailable to those who cannot afford it or who have parents who are not sufficiently well informed or ambitious to access it. It was once put to me, by somebody whom I no longer consider a friend, that I did not deserve to receive as good an education as she had herself received because my parents had not been as talented and hard working as her parents and thus could not afford to pay for the kind of education that she had received. A child deserves the education that that child deserves, not the education that the parents have earned as a privilege to bestow on the next generation.

[Chris H]

I agree totally with Tonedeafmum (if a little less eloquently!) I had the opportunity to study Latin, French and German O Levels at my state comprehensive, and several people in my year went on to study at Oxford and Cambridge, too. My son's comprehensive has high expectations of the pupils and celebrates success.

[Scooby Doo]

This thread is going to self-destruct, isn't it?

Interesting assumption that private schools are invariably superior in their academic standards etc to the state sector. Frankly that just isn't the case! Private schools have their problems too, and closing them all down would do precisely nothing to improve the management of the state sector. I've never understood that particular argument.

[barncottagecat]

A child deserves the education that that child deserves, not the education that the parents have earned as a privilege to bestow on the next generation.

If only it were this simple. How children do at school seems very often to be linked to their home environment. Unless there is an interest in education at home it can be very difficult for children to make the most of opportunities offered to them.

It also follows that many of the children in the private sector, often children of parents who take education very seriously, would be absolutely fine in the state sector, because they have often very good support at home (but really I think it's the lack of latin and greek in many state school timetables that stops people from sending 'em!!).

Anyway, I am all for scholarships , not just because my daughter has one (and we only beat her with the soft brush each night, not the spiky one, to make her practise), but why not reward and promote excellence? There are so many instances where we seem to be trying to prove that everyone's equally mediocre. I wonder do any state schools offer honorary scholarships of any kind?

[GMc]

From what era are we reliving our past glories here? We dont know anyone at a comprehensive who has pitches/courts for hockey, rugby and tennis these days. Didn't they get sold off by the bucketload by Mrs T+ Tebbutt et al?

[jonathanquinn]

From what era are we reliving our past glories here? We dont know anyone at a comprehensive who has pitches/courts for hockey, rugby and tennis these days. Didn't they get sold off by the bucketload by Mrs T+ Tebbutt et al?

Well I was at my comp 1993-2000, so some years after the departure of Margaret Thatcher. We had enough rugby pitches that eight matches could be played simultaneously. Of course rugby was only played in the autumn term, so in the spring these could be used for hockey, for which we also had additional AstroTurf pitches. In the summer the grass was marked out with a 400m running track and a square was closely mowed for cricket, for which we had a pavilion and nets, both permanent of course (they could hardly be demolished at the end of every summer). There was a track and sandpit for long jump, and other spaces marked out for javelin, discus, shot put, etc. Some extra fields had occasional use for soccer, very much a minor pursuit, but I think I played about half a dozen matches in my time. Then there were the tennis courts, not many of them, but enough for several matches to go on simultaneously. Indoors we had a basketball court and a gym. Longish runs took place along local lanes and residential streets. In rotation different groups of boys would also be put into a minibus and driven out into Kent to run around in proper countryside. At any one time a class of boys would also be taken out of normal lessons for a week to be taken up to the Peak District, where the schools owns premises. We also had an annual week's walking holiday in the Lake District, as well as trips for skiing and watersports and international tours for the principal sports teams. Sporting excellence was taken very seriously. Sports trophies were displayed in cabinets in the main school entrance, and boys who had represented the school at various levels were easily recognisable as they were awarded colours ties. All that was lacking were facilities for swimming, rowing, fives, and other smaller sports.

Very much off the topic of music scholarships, but seems worth setting the record straight that we are talking about a SE London comp up until 2000, and as far as I know nothing has changed since.

[jonathanquinn]

This thread is going to self-destruct, isn't it?

Interesting assumption that private schools are invariably superior in their academic standards etc to the state sector. Frankly that just isn't the case! Private schools have their problems too, and closing them all down would do precisely nothing to improve the management of the state sector. I've never understood that particular argument.

Growing up I was in the interesting position that half my friends were from school, a local comp, and the other half were from my various musical activities. So I had a fairly wide range of friends at schools such as Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Sherborne, Bradfield, Dulwich, the King's School Canterbury, Tonbridge, Loughborough Grammar (actually a public school), Colfe's, St Dunstan's, Whitgift, Latymer Upper, University College School, and St Paul's and City of London boys' and girls' schools. I would agree that St Dunstan's is not particularly strong academically, or in any other way for that matter, but the rest of those listed all seemed to me to be pretty top notch academically, musically, and in many other ways. Thanks to studying at Oxford and UCL I've also met many more people from schools such as Radley, Stowe, Ampleforth, Harrow, St Mary's Ascot, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Hampton, Bolton, The Lady Eleanor Holles, Rugby, Abingdon, Oundle, St John's Leatherhead, Wycombe Abbey, Bromley High, and King Edward's and King Edward VI High Birmingham, and, again, all seem to have had excellent educations, though I am told that Hampton is a bit second rate. Sure, I bet you can find the odd state school, such as St Olave's, which is better than the odd private school, such as St Dunstan's, but generally speaking it's a safe bet that a private school will have higher standards than a state school, excepting, as indicated, the elite selective state schools and the second-rate minor public schools.

[jonathanquinn]

A child deserves the education that that child deserves, not the education that the parents have earned as a privilege to bestow on the next generation.

Anyway, I am all for scholarships , not just because my daughter has one (and we only beat her with the soft brush each night, not the spiky one, to make her practise), but why not reward and promote excellence? There are so many instances where we seem to be trying to prove that everyone's equally mediocre. I wonder do any state schools offer honorary scholarships of any kind?

Of course excellence should be rewarded and promoted, but it should not be necessary to gain a scholarship to a private school for one's excellence to be rewarded and promoted. For one thing, most of the children at private schools are not there on scholarships, they are there because their parents can pay, so the scholarship defence doesn't hold water in my view. Also, those who are there on scholarships are there partly through their own excellence, partly through having parents smart enough to identify the need and the opportunity and to understand the system for exploiting that opportunity. There will always be children who cannot access scholarships despite having reached or exceeded the threshold for fee-paying admission to such schools (i.e. the brightest child who fails to win the scholarship is probably much brighter than the least bright child whose parents are paying full fees). Fundamentally, though, a private education is something that is available to those who can pay, and the scholarship system means that a lucky few (an excellent and lucky few, if you prefer) are able to enjoy that expensive education with part or all of the fee being waived. The fact is that state education is there to be accessed by all as a right, whereas private education is accessed as a privilege, whether it is achieved by paying for it or by winning partial or full exemption from payment. I find it interesting that I have never, and I mean never once, encountered a person who has been a beneficiary of private education, whether as a pupil or as a parent of a pupil, who is prepared to denounce the system as unjust. Those of us who did not benefit from the system, and perhaps a handful of those who did (I would guess that Tony Benn might be one), seem to be able to see that having a two-tier education system, in which the upper tier is available only to those who can pay or who can gain exemption from payment, is simply not fair.

In no way did my state school promote equality of mediocrity. Excellence was identified and rewarded. I don't know what the point of an honorary scholarship would be, but certainly there were plenty of opportunities for conspicuous reward of excellence: prizes, headmaster's commendations, certificates of merit, captaincies and vice captaincies of school, senior prefectures, prefectures, monitorships, colours ties (senior and U15 full and half), all awarded on the main school stage in full view of pupils, teachers, parents, governors, representatives of the local authority, etc.

[FullofWind]

There is a misconception that all independent schools offer a superior education that is a luxury. A arge number of independent schools cater for children with mild to severe learning difficulties. It is practically impossible to get a child statemented nowadays because of the extra funding required to support these children. They are being put in environments with very little support and are failing socially and academically. It's not a surprise that many kids with SEN are either being home educated or, if it can be afforded, are in specialist independent schools.

British independent schools and state schools used to be very similar but the gulf has grown because there is constant fiddling with the core education in state schools and the stripping away of modern and classical languages. The Public Schools remain fairly traditional and have stuck with traditional methods. Grammar schools may do well because of the selectivity of the cohort but if you look at the grammar school model, it mimics many of the traditional independent schools. The fault does not lie with independent schools, which have remained relatively unchanged, but with successive governments tampering with our children's education.

It shames me to say that my mother, who left her inner city school at 16, has a better use of the English and French language and her maths is better than mine. She failed her O'levels and I got A's. Something not quite right there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

[sadrap]

@jonathanquinn
You need to get out of your bubble and back into the real world. Most of us don't live in a cosmopolitan city, surrounded by art, music and culture, but live miles away from any major city and often in remote areas. So forgive us for trying to give our children the opportunities that you had growing up. I'm very proud of my child who worked hard to gain a major music scholarship to attend an excellent school that offers all the things you had growing up. I bet when and if you have children of secondary school age, you will not be sending them to just any old comprehensive that struggles to get the children to turn up for registration. You'll perhaps move to a catchment area that has a school just like the one you attended.
So until more schools are like the one you attended, a lot of us will have to send our children to a private school to study classical music, even if it is on a heavily subsidised scholarship .

[Swell Box]

The fact is that state education is there to be accessed by all as a right, whereas private education is accessed as a privilege......

Which, I suspect, is a large part of the problem. Anything which is provided free of charge by the state tends to be taken for granted and undervalued. That which we pay for we value.

The majority of parents who choose to send their offspring to public schools have to make considerable sacrifices to do so. That being the case they will do whatever they can to ensure that their children get the best from their education, and will not hesitate to speak to the Principal or a Head of Department if they feel that their child is being held back, or is not adequately supported. Ultimately parents can choose to take their custom elsewhere; although I have no idea how often this happens. (It certainly happens in state schools; usually as a result of persistent bullying.)

Unfortunately, there are no such sanctions in the state sector. We pay very dearly for the state education system through our taxes, (the cost per head in some inner city schools is reported to be dearer than Eton), but like the NHS, state education is provided free of charge at the point of supply, and as a right.

This puts parents at an immediate disadvantage in any negotiations, as there is simply not the imperative for Principals to resolve problems that inevitably arise in any school. In our own experience we have been fobbed off with lame excuses; we have been told that the LEA is to blame; and we have been told that the teacher simply doesn't have time to develop the potential of every child (and therefore has to prioritise those who have less interest or ability.) Such excuses would never be accepted by a parent paying 20,000 pounds a year for their child's education.

SB

[Scooby Doo]

JQ, perhaps you would like to address the question of how abolishing private education would actually benefit the state sector?