Are fee-paying schools worth it?

[Steven Barrett]

I wonder are teachers more accountable in fee paying schools or held to higher standards and therefore easier to replace if not cutting the mustard

No. It is the same. Plenty of rubbish teachers in private schools too. The grind schools are where they are accountable as they are about results and results only. They are not paid by the dept. like private schools are.

It's not just the private school though, you also need the ranger rover / X5 to go with it.

Completely false. A percentage are like that. Most are not

 

[Clamball]

The smaller class size and the extra facilities are the two main items for private schools. As in all schools there are good and bad teachers. However schools who consider themselves feeder schools for say DCU and trinity teach the subjects to a H1 level whereas rural schools with less going to third level and more going to apprenticeships etc, they may only teach the subjects to a H3 level, and those who need the better grades for university may suffer.

 

[DublinHead54]

Completely false. A percentage are like that. Most are not

Yes there are the Porsche's and Tesla's I forgot about them.

My comment was meant to be tongue in cheek. However, I live in South Dublin and there are a lot of those cars doing the school run!

 

[dishwasher]

The figures quoted in the IT article didn’t seem to me to be a ringing endorsement for “value” of private schools nor a massive indicator of inequality given the demographic selective nature of private schools in Ireland.

“Students from fee-paying schools made up 7.3 per cent of Leaving Cert students, but secured 9 per cent of total third level places and 12.7 per cent in traditional universities. Deis schools students made up 17.9 per cent and 17.4 per cent of all places, but just 10 per cent in traditional universities.”

The league tables are ridiculous in my opinion with their ranking according to how much higher than 100% get into college via CAO with people who change courses counted twice and those who go to NI/UK/elsewhere or defer excluded altogether.

My kids are in state schools - one with 92% one with 119%. Both higher than the 88% in the expensive local private option. Can i read anything meaningful into these stats? No.

 

[presidenttttt]

We have been fortunate to have a good system in Ireland, and therefore little incentive to go to private schools.

Has this changed in recent years with larger classes? Do private schools have smaller classes. Class size does matter.

The other trend I would consider is the increase in scum bags - irish scumbags - some people are dragged up and social media and longer working hours has made parenting even harder, one or two scum bags can ruin a class, and scumbags are less likely to be a feature of a private school. There is no healthy dose of fear amongst school kids now. Local schools becoming rough would probably be amongst the only reasons I would send a child to a private school.

 

[Annieindublin]

I think a lot depends on what the alternatives are locally. My sister moved house to be in the catchment area for a non fee paying school. 3 kids and no fees for 6 years each. However it’s an expensive area. But presumably she can get her money back on her house if she needs to.

same school had a wealthy cohort of parents. The fundraisers were pretty successful so the school had great sports facilities etc.

so the kids there were as advantaged as the fee paying school up the road. And of course same parents could and did pay for grinds.

needless to say a very high % go on to third level.

not exactly comparable to non fee paying school a few miles away where she used to live.

 

[Purple]

Yes, you're probably right about law: two-thirds of Irish supreme court judges went to private schools.

I think in medicine too. In one hospital I was the only one of 13 doctors in my department who had gone to a public school. Even more eye-opening, 7 of those 12 colleagues had attended 1 particular Dublin private school and all had at least 1 consultant parent.

Only 1 of my friends is sending her kids to private school and that's at the insistence of her own parents who are multimillionaires and happy to cover the cost.



I think you're right about home environment - kids who have good home support will tend to do well regardless.

Are the trips and exchanges included in the fees or is that an extra charge?

I didn't go to a private school and I'm not very smart so I'm not including myself in this but if tall people have tall kids and big nosed people have big nosed kids then is it logical and reasonable to expect that smart people have smart kids? If so is it likely that those smart people end up in will paid jobs and send their smart kids to private schools and those kids in turn have smart kids who send their kids to private schools? Is that the reason, or at least a large part of the reason, that a disproportionately large number of doctors and judges etc went to private schools?

In a country with a good education system and generally good access to that education system is it actually genetics at play and not some sort of patriarchy or old boys network or snobbery etc? Because in my 50 years living in this country I have seen very little real snobbery, the only exception being towards Travellers and, to a far lesser extent, people with a strong "working class" Dublin accent.

 

[WizardDr]

There are a number of matters about education.

First good teachers with good students get amazing results regardless of private and non-private. Bad teachers get shocking results and is an uphill battle for all students. This is a key determinant on outcomes.

Second the Principal is key and again some amazing situations with some non-fee paying school but there tends to be more motivated principals in private schools.

Third class size does not materially affect outcomes.

The non-removal of useless teachers is a disaster. [Change this and pay levels should be increased.]

Probably the differential between private and non-private is pushy parents who correctly see education as the potential ticket to a better life. If they are pushy collectively in the wrong direction problems arise but if there is some alignment this helps. Maximising points is also a focus. Not necessarily superior teaching but subject availability and things like exam technique (which can increase marks by 10%).

With the national school near me where we wanted to send Junior it transpired that in agnostic England living in the parish mattered - here there were so many other factors on the list of the unaccountable fiefdom that is national schools that Junior was on a waiting list and never got in.

 

[misemoi]

I think we need to take a step back and understand that we went from a large majority of kids leaving the school system at 14 less than 60 years ago to a time when university fees (and I know that is a v small part of education expense) are 2k a year to the user, or 0 if supported by grants. That is a massive leap, that in a generation meant that you could go from a parent having no secondary education to their child getting to Masters level. Maybe it is a cohort thing and rent prices and cost of living make it less possible now but it certainly was true for a long time, and private secondary education was not required to achieve this. And I still don't think it is. More factors impact progression to third level than simply the school you went to.

 

[Firefly]

I took some time writing the post below as I know it's an emotive topic and I don't want to offend anyone.

I actually don't agree with the idea of private schools, even though my own teenagers go to private schools. Just like, in theory, I don't agree with private health insurance. So why did we choose these schools? Most importantly it's not because they are private per se, because we are not like that. It's not for wanting top points either - if it was, I would say that a good public school until 5th year and a grind school in senior cycle would be better and a lot cheaper.

From time to time, I've asked herself if we made the right decision, as for us, the outlay is not insignificant and we have certainly made sacrifices. But we know, for us it's the right decision on a whole host of things - it's the whole package really. I suppose key to our decision, is the likely future path that going to a specific school will have for our kids. Of course there are no guarantees, kids from private schools can end up being wasters and kids from poor backgrounds / schools can end up doing very well for themsevles. However, you would expect as a parent, that the odds are better for a child going to a private school. In that respect, in our opinion, the private schools are a better bet than the public schools near us, but not that much to be fair. Hence the questioning from time to time!

There is a perception that the parents of private school kids are all loaded. In my opinion, there is a higher proportion of kids from very well-to-do familes in private schools alright. I am often reminded of my kid's friends' multiple, high-end foreign holidays every year. I would say that the proportion of kids from middle-class / professional families is the same as for public schools in the same vicinity. As far as I can see though, there are very few kids from poor / very poor backgrounds in the private schools our kids attend. I think though, that for a lot of families, if they decided to, they could afford the fees. In Cork, it works out at about 5k per child per annum. Not insignificant, but not much less than the price of a foreign holiday, which we have done without on a few occasions.

On the exclusivity aspect of private schools, I think this is a valid criticism. By it's nature, a fee paying school can & does select who attends from those that can even afford it, never mind excluding those who cannot. Excluding people is, IMO sadly part of human nature (good luck trying to get into that exclusive tennis club, golf club or sailing club without connections). I think though education can & does have an overwhelming impact on the future of a child, so the fact that private schools are exclusive, to me doesn't sit comfortably. Having said that, a lot of the well-regarded public schools only accept kids from the vicinity, which tend to be in the posher parts of town, so these are as much out of reach for poor families as private schools are really. I acknowledge this is a very weak position for me to take, but I am not trying to change the system, just trying to do what's best for our kids.

I think though that calls for withdrawing all state supports for private schools would be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face:
- The cost to the taxpayer will be greater.
- A lot of private schools would close. Either they revert to public status with the inevitable increase in class sizes / numbers or the public system would see greater pressure & costs to provide the education.
- The remaining private schools would only be for only the very well off then where they will be very exclusive.
- I think students going to public schools which are near private schools, benefit from competition, which would be reduced.

I think rather than doing the relatively easy & populist thing by withdrawing state supports for private schools, it would be better to focus on improving the public schools to the point where it would be seen as a total waste of money for parents to send their kids to private schools at all. And we all know, the rich put a higher emphasis on value for money than the rest of us. Sadly though, SF are socialists & begrudgers at heart, who seem happier to drag some people down rather than try to lift others up.

 

[Marsupial]

On a side note a recent newsletter from the principal of my daughters school started with " Myself and Ms. XXXX have organised the Carol Service". If the woman in charge starts sentences like that then what hope is there for the children? I wouldn't mind but it's an exceptional learning environment full of exceptional teachers, or so they keep telling me.

O tempora, o mores!

Sadly, it's only grumpy old gits like you and I what gets annoyed at such appalling grammer! (spot the deliberate errors!)

 

[Marsupial]

I didn't go to a private school and I'm not very smart so I'm not including myself in this but if tall people have tall kids and big nosed people have big nosed kids then is it logical and reasonable to expect that smart people have smart kids? If so is it likely that those smart people end up in will paid jobs and send their smart kids to private schools and those kids in turn have smart kids who send their kids to private schools? Is that the reason, or at least a large part of the reason, that a disproportionately large number of doctors and judges etc went to private schools?

In a country with a good education system and generally good access to that education system is it actually genetics at play and not some sort of patriarchy or old boys network or snobbery etc? Because in my 50 years living in this country I have seen very little real snobbery, the only exception being towards Travellers and, to a far lesser extent, people with a strong "working class" Dublin accent.

Like most of us, I went to the school that my parents had selected for me. It turned out to be a fee paying one, but at age 7 I wasn't really in a strong position to argue the toss! Indeed I wasn't really aware of the difference between my school and the one around the corner!

One of my teachers (a lovely old man with a strong Dublin accent - he retired in 1964 so was probably born around 1900) spent much of his time warning us that if we didn't behave ourselves, do our homework and respect our parents and teachers, then we'd turn into "corner boys" and be destined to spend the rest of our lives slouching on street corners, smoking discarded cigarette butts and collecting empty jam jars and milk bottles! How right he was! While I don't smoke or spend much of my time standing at corners, I do regularly collect jam jars, discarded beer bottles and cans - and bring them to my local recycling centre! The man was a prophet!

Over 50 years later, the main regret that I have about not having been sent to a national school is that I never really learned how to talk or read Irish properly. (But my Latin is superb!)

 

[Purple]

Is it fair to say that parents are paying for what they consider to be a better peer group rather than a better education? The kids that kids hang around with in secondary school are a far bigger influence on them that their parents. That's why my daughter's fee paying school has a significant number of students from what would be considered socially deprived areas where parents sacrifice and save to expose their children to a peer group who generally behave well and come from households where education is valued.
It's a real sign of the snobbery of well educated middle class socialists who can afford to live in expensive areas, and so benefit from a form of economic apartheid, that they condemn those who send their children to fee paying schools even though they may have far less than them.

 

[Firefly]

Is it fair to say that parents are paying for what they consider to be a better peer group rather than a better education?

If I'm honest I think that's a big part of it, but more the former than the latter, rather than either / or. And it's not to be elistist etc etc, just that, you would expect a better outcome all round.

 

[Marsupial]

It's a real sign of the snobbery of well educated middle class socialists who can afford to live in expensive areas, and so benefit from a form of economic apartheid, that they condemn those who send their children to fee paying schools even though they may have far less than them.

Agreed. It's a tad ironic that so many privately educated, middle class "designer socialists" want to pull up the very ladder that they themselves availed of in order to clamber above the glass ceiling!

 

[thedaddyman]

It's interesting how fee paying schools have changed. I went as a boarder to a "junior seminary". One of those catholic boarding schools run by the diocese until recent times. Every county had at least one named after a saint, Kieran's, Flannans, Jarlaths etc etc. It certainly wasn't posh, the food was awful and the abuse in some places was systematic. (thankfully I never suffered it but I know some who did) They are gone now or moved to day schools only.

My kids now go to the local secondary and interact with rural and townies, from all walks and sectors of life. I'd never send them to a boarding school, never ever ever. It's a much more balanced experience. We could afford to send them as day pupils to a fee paying school but I'm not sure what more they would get. Local secondary's have a decent University track record and facilities are fine. I actually think it is healthier for kids to have a circle of friends outside of school also

As for scumbags, they can come from everywhere, just sometimes they have a posher accent then others

 

[Takado]

I am in the somewhat unusual position of having gone to a private school for the Junior Cert before switching to the local public school for the Leaving Cert (albeit a highly rated public school in a well-off suburb). The standard of teaching was exactly the same (mixture of the good, the bad, and the ugly).

I hated the “old boy” stuff in the private school. All very stuffy and you needed to uphold a certain image as a student there. All the students were pretty much from the same background (upper middle class, some v. wealthy, famous parents etc.). The public school gave me the chance to make friends with people from a broader range of socio-economic circumstances, which I believe has been to my benefit.

All things being equal, I think the group I was in the public school with were a nicer and more rounded bunch than the private school, but this is pot luck depending on the year. My main takeaways are that the standard of teaching is the same, the standard of student is maybe only marginally lower in public schools (as they can’t be as selective), and the old boys union stuff is “love it or hate it” kind of thing. If I had the choice of a good public school, I’d go with that and save the money.

 

[mustang01]

My exoerience with private schools is that they are so focused on maintaining their reputations, points tables etc that they focus on results above all else. For example, neurodiverse kids which generally don’t fit the current outdated educational model are generally unwelcome or their needs ignored altogether. There’s a lot more to education than academia.

 

[DannyBoyD]

..I never really learned how to talk or read Irish properly.

Suspect you mean you never learned how to speak Irish properly

 

[Marsupial]

Suspect you mean you never learned how to speak Irish properly

Well, I never learned to speak Irish like a native, but I was still able to communicate orally - in tolerably decent spoken Irish - with my Irish-speaking wife and gaelscoil educated children!