Bog-standard state education never did me any harm, though they never did manage to stop me skiving hehehehehehe. But the education system trapped me in the end and I went to uni, got a 1st class degree and then a PhD. I can't see any reason to spend thousands of pounds on private schooling -- I can think of much better ways to spend my money cos we have a perfectly good state system in the UK.
I've never been sure about home schooling. I'm not questioning the academic benefits, but I do wonder how it affects childrens' social skills. I mean, that's part of education too, isn't it?
Well as someone who lives in one of the cities with the lowest educational attainments . . . .
I have three very different children. Eldest with special needs, 2nd doing x3 GCSE two years early and youngest -m pretty average I would say. All the kids have therefroe required different input from the education system.
I belive, like many others, that school is not just about what we can learn educationally but also being able to socialise and interact with others to develop ourselves to our greatest potential at that particualr stage in our life. Unfirtunately for my eldest child, life will always be difficult but the world will not change for him. he needs to learn to adapt himself so he can fit in and be as valued as anyone else. I could not teach him these skills by myself - his peers are often the best motivation that he has to try out new things and share the failures and successes with them.
And I have to agree with many others, parental input, support and encouragement is vital for the children to achieve their potential wherever they are being educated.
In our country, UK, you can have an education whenever you want. That's great. I went in as a mature student and grabbed a degree in engineering. It was useful in as much as I wanted it to be.
We can't all be geniuses, probably about 10% of the world's brains, do the real clever stuff. For the rest of us its just counting the beans and mending the fences.
So if your kids don't happen to be Leonardo or Einstein, don't worry.
The education process we have is geared up to produce a minumum of brainy sprogs.
They are simply the produce of the continuum.
well I went to private school until 11 ( was a convent actually and got taught by nuns), and then i went on to a state grammer school, that changed to a comprehensive half way through. So as you can see i have inside knowledge on the subject.
The only real differance between private and state schools is class size. In private schools teachers do have more time for you, as they only have half as many pupils to look after. So undoubtably the results from that school are usually higher. However that does not mean you have had a good education !! I found at private school you were blinkered and trained almost like a race horse towards one goal. passing the exam. In my case it was the 11+. However the 6 monthes prior to the actuall exam all i did was old 11+ papers. we never seemed to touch on history or geography etc etc. when I did go to secondary school i found that I was actually behind others from state schools that had, had a more rounded education.
So if all you want is your child to pass exams and get results then send to private school. If you want your child to have a rounded education, and learn things about life rather than just how to pass exams, then choose the state sector.
What really annoys me is when people say they should have the choice !! That means you can have a choice if you can afford it. What choice does the 6 year old have, if their parents simply can not afford anything other than the state sector.
There are only enough resources to educate our children. These are focussed on a bandwidth of principles and disciplines to produce children who primarily understand what adults do/know. That seems obvious. However its enormously repetitive and inefficient.
What would happen if we educated our children into the principles of Autism, Dyslexia, Hyper activity etc,. Consider what will happen if space reserach requires people to inhabit weighlessness for their whole lives.
I do feel they should be put into social situations where they 'have' to learn how to adapt and get on - after all, we can't choose who we work with later on (ok some can :lol2: )
So far, albeit bluddy slow 
but trust me it's the truth...
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