Anyone else thinking of hitchhiking to their university to camp outside 'till they open, then beg plead, cry throw a tantrum and anything else you can think of to get accepted to any course if you miss your offer.
Anecdotes may be prone to mis-generalisations but at least they offer rich data. As long as you have more than an acceptable number of anecdotes, you should be justified in believing that there's a trend.
Anyone can provide any number of anecdotes of dubious reliability.
But all too often it's the case that they work harder because they are pushed or because they are instilled with a good work ethic. The latter is not a bad thing, nor necessarily is the former, provided your parents don't place unrealistic expectations which get in the way of you enjoying your youth. Yes, the person who sits the exams is you, but at a young age, you are very impressionable, and if your parents are bad role models, you're more likely to imitate their indifference...
I agree that parental attitude has an important effect, but this is no reason to hate private school pupils - it sounds more like an issue with your own parents if any.
Maybe not, but smaller class sizes and more individual attention from teachers, as well as longer school days (and in some cases, 6 school days a week) definitely pays off. Not to mention being able to learn at a place with a zero-bullying tolerance that's actually taken very seriously, and the luxury of not having to be taught in the same room as those 1 or 2 destined-to-be-criminals, which, believe me, you'll find in almost every state school class, while less 'with-it' kids dread every lesson and spend most of their time wondering how they'll be victimised or humiliated next, which is a huge distraction to their learning. This might sound daft to people who have never been to a state secondary school, but the chavs and the scum are usually at the top of the social hierarchy. Sometimes you have to side with the powerful and join in with the bullying in order to survive!
Firstly, I don't need lecturing on what state schools are like; I have been in one all my life as a FSM pupil. Your description is reasonably accurate but vastly over-exaggerated and the idea of "joining in bullying in order to survive" is a ridiculous one. If you did this then you should be ashamed.
Whenever school inspectors come into classrooms for their yearly duties, pupils are threatened by their teachers beforehand to act on their best behaviour. All these conclusions that state schools are satisfactory is based on evidence that doesn't quite reflect what actually goes on behind closed doors. Bullying is far worse at state schools than it is at private schools. Even kids who aren't bullied go through a lot of fear. It's this uncomfortable environment that drags state school kids down. I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about serious emotional bullying that can really scar you.
All schools put on a show for Ofsted, not just state schools. I also do not believe that private schools are free from bullying, nor that state schools are incubators for bullies. It sounds like you have just had a particularly bad personal experience as whilst there were definitely them at mine they were the normal kind everyone experiences.
Sure, when you reach GCSE/6th form, bullying occurs less, but those feelings of ostracisation and lovesickness become your next problem when that girl you're obsessed with gets a boyfriend, leaving you feeling suicidal, as she hangs out in her elite little clique that only welcomes those who survived Years 7 - 9 unscathed. Then, as soon as she turns 16, rumours flood the playground that she's having sex with this joke of a person, while you lie on your bed alone, crying and masterbating...
Sure, when you reach GCSE/6th form, bullying occurs less, but those feelings of ostracisation and lovesickness become your next problem when that girl you're obsessed with gets a boyfriend, leaving you feeling suicidal, as she hangs out in her elite little clique that only welcomes those who survived Years 7 - 9 unscathed. Then, as soon as she turns 16, rumours flood the playground that she's having sex with this joke of a person, while you lie on your bed alone, crying and masterbating...
Over-exaggeration of the century.
Yeah, I am pretty sure that happened to no one at my sixth form, everyone is happier.
Someone is being really dramatic. Most people have normally functioning brains and are happy human beings