Amongst all the noise over over the school funding debate, I haven't heard any debate over the merits of sending your kids to an elite private school. Do they turn your average kid into an academic super star, like many parents hope?
In my experience, they don't.
I attended one of these schools. Admittedly my experiences were over 30 years ago, but one rule hasn't changed; if your kid's academically motivated, and they take advantage of the facilities, they can excel at a elite private school. If not, you're burning your hard earned.
How do I know this? Because I was one of those non conformist kids.
Private school is about selling an image, and every pupil is a walking billboard marketing the image. The pressure is on pupils to conform.
I hated the mindless rules and obligations that went with attending my school. I wasn't the type to draw so much attention to myself that I was expelled (a lot were), but I non conformed in every way I could. Including academically.
Looking back, I now realise I should have attended the local high school. I wouldn't have done any worse going there, and I may have done better without all the baggage that going to a private school entails.
I don't blame the school for my experience. We were just not suited to each other. Different schools suit different kids. The trick is to match the two correctly.
Well my daughter went to one of the hit list schools and it was worth every cent. But this was a small, non selective, non denominational one with kids from all over the place. In raw scores her academic results won't raise the roof but she developed over 6 years to maximise everything she had and has come out a well rounded, respected and caring person, awarded for service to the school, and she has found her own area of excellence in design. I would have loved to have found all that for her locally but in a country area the options aren't many.
It's horses for courses of course - we can count ourselves lucky, in the great lottery of trying to to the best for our kids, if we can feel we got it right.
I'm glad you got it right. It's all ahead of us.
My experience (nearly 40 years ago) of one of the 67 schools was exactly the same as yours. I hated the place - all males - stupid, stupid rules and such pretension - we used to sing 'Come All Ye Faithful' in Latin for God's sake!
It took me 10 years after leaving the school to become motivated enough about education to go to university - thanks Gough, I couldn't do it now.
Peter