if you read the small print it was funded at least in part by those well known Eurosceptics the Barclay Bothers through the Telegraph Media group. So Yet again the D.Tel is announcing as news ‘research’ they have paid for almost certainly influenced and wish to endorse.

Hardly unbiased reporting, and to be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism.

As far as the OECD figures are concerned, Not everyone believes the PISA scores are looking at the right areas.

“”They are skewing schools and national education systems away from real learning towards repetitive rote learning,” said Sir Anthony, head of Wellington College in Berkshire.”

Last time I looked, Wellington College was an independent school, so he can’t be accused of having a vested interest in supporting the state sector.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32608772

Just goes to show, anyone can interpret information to justify their own point of view.:) I am aware of this, are you willing to accept that?

Trekkie,

Last sentence. Still waiting.

Strangely enough, I don’t hang on your every word, obey your every command nor feel the need to prove, yet again, you don’t know what you are talking about.

I think you are misunderstanding ( deliberately?) the points I make. I have never said that every state school is fantastic, far from it, but equally nor is every fee paying school. Particularly at primary level.

I am not talking about the OECD figures, I am talking about your rose tinted view of Private Good/State Bad. If you feel so strongly I need to reply to every point you make, you could at least reciprocate. Why have you not acknowledged, through my own examples, that many state educated students achieve through hard work and commitment and eagerness to learn and also that some private school pupils under achieve?

For your information. It comes from the D.Tel, so must be true.
The context is tutoring to pass entrance exams to fee paying schools.
“There is no doubt that many children struggle once they are within these schools and, in many cases, flounder without the extensive tutoring which they once had to help them keep up.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11684535/Pressure-on-children-to-get-into-top-schools-has-reached-a-crisis-point.html

If private schools are so good for every pupil, why are so many pupils having to have extra tuition to get in from Prep schools, and require continuing external tutoring throughout their secondary schooling?

All this of course before the trendy left managed an all too successful infiltration and takeover of State education in this country

As I have said before, All this shows is your own prejudices, not the reality.

John,
You are clearly very blinkered about how hard most, not all I would agree, but most state educated secondary students are willing to work. Since you clearly have had no experience in such an environment, I am afraid you are being led astray by the propaganda that encourages your views, most I would expect coming from the Private sector itself. It is in their financial interest to so.

I think you would be surprised how much ‘cramming’ takes place in state schools, it just isn’t called that, just as homework isn’t called ‘prep’

If you think ALL private students wish to learn, I fear you have demonstrated a fundemental lack of understanding of both the teenage mind and statistics. It is a nonsensical statement, just as your one regarding ALL state pupils avoiding excellence. Tell that to my twin nephews who through state education achieved five A* two A’sand a B grade between them at A level. And the subjects were Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Geography, so don’t dare suggest they were ‘soft’ courses. One acheived 595/600 for his Further Maths A level which put him well into the top 1% in the country, regardless of the institution type. I also have friends whose children attended private schools and clearly underperformed. Their parents are the first to admit this.

As I have said before, if you had said it is more likely that a private pupil will want to work I could at least see your point as one to base an argument on as parental expectation does clearly make a difference, although I could give many examples of parents in state schools who are supportive and encouraging( although it is clear you don’t accept my experience in this area) but to suggest that it is Private Good/ State Bad with no exceptions is ridiculous.

Go into your local state secondary or academy for a week, shadow some teachers and students and you would soon realise your comments are laughable.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am well aware of some of the disruption issues in classrooms, and it may well be more prevelent in some state schools than most private ones, but if you believe that all private school teachers don’t spend time managing behaviour, you are are again in cloud cuckoo land.

Regarding the exam marking, do you believe private schools exams are marked seperately and with different grade boundaries? This would be the only way ‘grade inflation’ would be limited to state schools.

It honestly doesn’t work that way.

My brother, who is an IT consultant had a similar call, so decided to take them for a bit of a ride. As the ‘friend’ took him through the stages on his ‘PC’ that would have allowed remote access to his machine, he sounded gullible enough, until the guy asked him to click on ‘start’, at which point my brother said, ‘but I don’t have ‘start’ at the bottom left of my machine, it’s a Mac’, the scammer twigged and put the phone down. As my brother said, that was 5 mins he wasn’t potentially scamming someone else.

John,
Hand on heart, I can assure you that the only case of cheating in coursework that I have encountered personally was in one of our local, INDPENDENT schools, where it was shown that art technicians were completeing students coursework, and in some cases exam work for them.

I don’t have an idealised belief in state education, but I have a much more informed one than many on this forum having actually experienced it at secondary level for a considerable period of time, rather than on the periphery

It is wrong, whether in state or private education, and I would bet it happens equally in proportion in both types of institution, as the pressures that seem to engender this type of immoral behaviour are not restricted to one sector.

Anyway, since that piece was in the Telegraph, one must treat it with the caution it deserves , even though reading it, nowhere can I see that they are suggesting such practices are restricted to state education:rolleyes:
Nor does this piece of reporting
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/8940781/Exam-boards-how-examiners-tip-off-teachers-to-help-students-pass.html
it is equally likely, having attended a number of exam board seminars myself,(none of which had the material discussed in this article passed on to delegates), the teachers attending such sessions were pretty much evenly balanced between the private and state sector

And grade inflation is not restricted to state education as you infer, it applies to ALL candidates by the very nature of the ways exams are marked

And young fella,
Lincoln .7

That’s the first time I have been called young for a very long time.

Hope your recovery continues well.

Jim nice to know what some members think of us senior drain in the budget citizens!

I did not say this. I merely pointed out that as we all live longer and have more complicated illnesses that are sucessfully treated, we all use the system more over our lifetimes than was the case a generation ago. Patient expectations have also changed over the years. England’s GP’s had 370 million contacts in 2013, which was 60 million more than in 2008. This is a 16% rise in contacts. Since the population in England increased from roughly 51 million to 53 million in that time ( less than 6%) this cannot be attributed to the rise in poulation alone.

The number of GP’s (32000) remained pretty much static. However since 2013, the number of trainee doctors wishing to become GP’s has dropped and the number retiring or emigrating has jumped.

Regarding the ethnic mix, most immigrants to this country who have arrived in the past few years are young, generally fit and well and pay taxes and national insurance. So the likelihood is that if you have a large immigrant population registered at a surgery, they will use the system less than an equivalent number of the indigenous population who would tend to be from a wider age and health spectrum.

If however you are suggesting that the number of immigrants are increasing the population in an area and therefore there is more pressure on a particular surgery, this may be a valid argument.
This is not directly the fault of the GP surgery affected, this is an issue for the local commisioning group to sort out. Except because of the denigration of GP’s in the media, particularly the right leaning press, the commisioning groups can’t recruit. It is this as well as the squeezed budgets that is causing stress points. Contrary to what is in the press, most surgeries have experienced real cuts to their budgets since 2010, particularly those who were fundholding and/or had pharmacies. For those, the latest ‘reorganisation’ under the last coalition government has meant a cut of up to 25% in income to the surgery. This has resulted in fewer staff being employed, or in the case of expanding list sizes, no extra staff being taken on. It has also meant reduced personal income for GP’s and increased workloads.