Why is it fair for people with money to get a better education than me?

Millfield?

more like Plymouth college, or not after looking at the fee, but PMC has it;s own Olympic size?

oh yeh could definitely be Plymouth. You're right I think Plymouth does have an Olympic size pool, but I was fairly sure Millfield has one as well.

Millfield's pool is of Olympic standard, not size. Essentially means it is 50m long but lacks the 25m width or 10 lanes requirement.

The individual has to be motivated. How many students are there at the back of the classroom intimidating perfectly able members of staff and in turn disrupting other pupils? I'm not disputing that some teachers may not be good, but students need to take part of the blame. A teacher's job is to teach, not to break up fights or deal with an unruly pupil. Discipline and a good work ethic must come from the parents.

The level of immaturity and disrespect from students towards teachers is truly shocking. I do not wish to play the sympathy card or make comparisons with third world countries, but the fact that they view education as something to laugh at makes me so angry, and blame must be pointed towards the parents. Therefore I fail to see what this has to do with private schools. Instead of dragging standards down, we should be raising them to the level of better schools.

PMC does not have an Olympic sized swimming pool. Plymouth Leander, the club I train for and the club that PMC sends people to uses the Plymouth Life Centre, which is the only 50 meter pool in Plymouth.

Millfield has its own, dedicated 50 meter pool.

Millfield's pool is of Olympic standard, not size. Essentially means it is 50m long but lacks the 25m width or 10 lanes requirement.

ah k, thought it was something like that. Didn't really know all the requirements for an olympic pool. Just thought 50m = olympic pool

And yes, I go to Millfield.

haha ok

You guys lost in the ISFA final this year didn't you?

Yeah but nobody cares about football. Rugby and Swimming ftw!

You didn't actually answer my question!
If the state were to aquire your school (not easy, I know!) and run it as a comprehensive, then anyone with a talent in swimming could be awarded a place regardless of their parents income. The cost could be offset via opening the facility to the public when the school isn't using it (again not easy, but still do-able!).

This may occur, but with determination, the same ethos and enviroment from private schools could continue, therefore improving things for education as a whole.

Straight to the point, fantistic.

The individual has to be motivated. How many students are there at the back of the classroom intimidating perfectly able members of staff and in turn disrupting other pupils? I'm not disputing that some teachers may not be good, but students need to take part of the blame. A teacher's job is to teach, not to break up fights or deal with an unruly pupil. Discipline and a good work ethic must come from the parents.

The level of immaturity and disrespect from students towards teachers is truly shocking. I do not wish to play the sympathy card or make comparisons with third world countries, but the fact that they view education as something to laugh at makes me so angry, and blame must be pointed towards the parents. Therefore I fail to see what this has to do with private schools. Instead of dragging standards down, we should be raising them to the level of better schools.

My parents got divorced, my Mum had fabroids and bled profusely. She also gave up her legal practice and was subsequently made bankrupt because of mismanagement of the firm while she was away convalescing. If anything, my parent's ill fortune made me want to achieve, and bring some success and happiness to the family that I loved. It can always go two ways, and I attribute much of my academic success and good school behaviour to the bad things that happened .

If you are making it difficult for others to learn, then you should be excluded from lessons, whatever the reasons for it. You could have spoken to/ been referred to a pastoral head or school counselor I suppose. But still, it's hard to know whether a student is an ill-disciplined lay-about or just going through a difficult patch, and I wouldn't think it was in the teacher's remit to delve into family issues. Having said that, it's always nice when a teacher goes above and beyond to help their students.

Well done, you dealt with it a lot better than I did. We never had school councillors or anything, and my pastoral head just decided to keep giving me detentions and putting me on report, neither did any good. None of the good teachers tried to delve into my family issues, they just knew how to deal with difficult kids, and most importantly they actually seemed to care. Of all the other disruptive kids I knew, the majority of them had difficult home lives, very few were just disrupting for disruption sake.

Excluding kids from lessons doesn't do the disruptive kids any good, do you think I cared about being sent out when one of my parents was literally on their death bed in hospital? If one child is left behind and failed by the school system then that's one too many. Thankfully, because there were a few good teachers in my crappy school I got to go to college, got decent A levels (ABB), and am now at a good university. I have no idea where I would be without those teachers, but I doubt it would be any place good.

I think disruptive kids should be excluded but also given extra care and attention outside the classroom where they can't distract others...

Glad to hear you doing good

The title is more of a crowd drawer than my actual opinion, I'm still undecided on the 'private school issue' but I'm prepared to swing either way so convince me otherwise TSR.

I was just speaking to a girl who told me she wants to do Law in KCL, and she told me her brother got 12 A*s and she got 8 A*s. Me and my brothers went to state schools and I never got a single A*, one had mostly Cs and one had mostly Ds. So I've done much better than my brothers.

At first I thought wow for both to get such good grades they must have really good parents. But then I decided to ask "Do you go to a private school or state school?" She answered "Private school."

For both to have done so well having gone to a private school, I'm assuming this a common thing? Where as my school is a band 1 state school (Top band) and the highest achieved grade was 11 A* and 1 A, the second was 7A* and it went down from there out of 200 people. My GCSEs were considered well above average for my school. I can't however apply to the top Universities because my GCSEs aren't as good compared to, say, people on TSR and I am a hard worker.

So why is it that people who go to private schools get better grades? Why is their standard of education so high and why can't teachers in state schools copy it?

I'm just wondering, so discuss.

Oh, and I don't think there are welsh private schools are there?


Before anyone tries telling me their own opinions or situations e.g "I went to a private school and failed all of my GCSEs" here are some facts taken from the BBC and elsewhere.

8% of Children go to private schools, 92% go to state schools.
50% of Oxbridge undergrads are from private schools.
More than half of all students in Private schools come out with A or A* GCSE grades.
38% of all children getting three As or better at A-level are from Private schools.
"Pupils at private schools are more than three times as likely to get AAB in the key A level subjects that help candidates gain access to top universities as those in state schools, according to the first analysis of its kind released by the government." ~ Nick Clegg