Private Schools.

Pighead

Well, What do you think?

Would you put the fruit of your loins/ladybits into a Private School to give him/her the best possible chance to get a decent education?

These schools cost 1000's of euros and Pighead would imagine the facilities would be better? Is it worth it? Are they all snobby mammys boys who check each others bits out in the showers and then retire to their dorms for games of soggy biscuit?

Pighead needs to know - an old chum of mine went to a private school and he used to get quite a lot of slagging from from the local tough boys who thought he was a smarmy little rich boy with notions of upperosity. He wasn't. He was smashing.

On top of that, it was an all boys school so he was obviously a homosexual in their eyes.

So. would you?

Femelade

nope, being a single mother i could never afford it. Also i don't know any near me, so the travel expences would be too much alone.

Pighead

Femmy wrote:

nope, being a single mother i could never afford it. Also i don't know any near me, so the travel expences would be too much alone.

How about if you married one of the Admins from boards and money was no longer an issue. Would you put your little angel through Private school or would you send him/her to Public school thinking it was much of a muchness.

The Hill Billy

Hill Billy wouldn't be bothered with that malarky.
Hill Billy will send his son & heir to the local primary school & then the local secondary.
They were good enough for Hill Billy & they'll be good enough for Junior too.

While the facilities may be better (& God knows the facilities in the local primary near us aren't great) Hill Billy thinks that the standard of teachers & edgeukashun is great.

Hill Billy also thinks that he'd be fcuked if he was going to put his child through a tortuous commute to far-far-away "better" schools.

Hilly Billy wouldn't have it in his heart to get Junior up at ungodly hours of the morning to spend a couple of hours on packed trains to get there & back again when he'd be better off spending that time with with an extra hour in bed & then in the afternoon with his mates kicking ball or riding his bike.

Femelade

erm...if i married one of the Admins....i'd prob still stick with public. I turned out fine. She is now going to the same primary school that i went to, most of the same teachers, and she will most probably go to the same secondary school too.

Thirdfox

Yep, depends on what your child wants to get out of the experience of going to a private school. If it's just for games of rugby/hockey and soggy biscuit then s/he can join the local sports club, but if s/he wants to go to a school that has more motivated and experienced teachers, better facilities etc. etc. then it is very good value for money.

There are the posh people... but really it is much better to be looked down upon by them then to be beaten up by the more "rough" people in some public schools. Of course many public schools are really well funded and have good teachers (seems like the Cork area is doing pretty well in second level education) so do your research first I suppose.

Ruu_Old

Teach the little ones yourself Pighead, where else will they get the Pighead Patented Experience (All Rights Reserved)?

spurious

There's no connection between fee-paying and better facilities.

Probably the best equipped school in Dublin is an inner-city VEC school - full gym, astro-turf pitch, climbing wall, two large computer rooms, 30 laptops for individual use, completely networked building, library with proper qualified librarian, etc.

The advantage private schools give people is networking. The State owned schools (VEC and Community Colleges) get higher government funding per student, have stricter qualification requirements for staff, smaller class sizes etc..

A bright motivated child with supportive parents will do well in any school. A child with difficulties is usually better off with people who are trained to cope with them, rather than languishing at the back of a big class. Traditionally, the fee-paying schools always selected who they wanted in their school, so they had a remarkable 'lack' of children with major learning problems. This unsurprisingly meant their average results were better - since they weren't on a level pitch.

Most of a child's educational 'destiny' is set in place before they even go to primary school.

Pighead

spurious wrote:

The advantage private schools give people is networking. The State owned schools (VEC and Community Colleges) get higher government funding per student, have stricter qualification requirements for staff, smaller class sizes etc..

You sure about this, your information sounds kinda spurious to Pighead. Would have thought that private schools would have smaller classes.

spurious

I have taught for 22 years in the VEC and never had a class group bigger than 20.

The VECs can spread their allocation over all the schools, so where they can have a class of say, 28+ at Post-Leaving, this frees up staff to take groups as small as 10 or 12 at Junior Cert. level in other schools.

Pighead

spurious wrote:

I have taught for 22 years in the VEC and never had a class group bigger than 20.

The VECs can spread their allocation over all the schools, so where they can have a class of say, 28+ at Post-Leaving, this frees up staff to take groups as small as 10 or 12 at Junior Cert. level in other schools.

Well I never, Wasn't like that in Dundalk I tells ya. Pighead used to cram into a room with 30-40 smelly blokes and as far as I know all the rest of the schools around town were the same. We ended up building crappy freezing cold prefabs out the back of the school because of the sheer numbers.

homeOwner

Private schools dont necessarily have any better facilities but you get taught a mindset of "succceeding" if you want to call it that, that I dont think you get in public schools. Its expected of you that you do well, participate in sports, music etc... and go to college. Networking is also a huge part of it. But its not all rich folk, plenty of middle income earners.

One other major thing is accent. You get a certain accent in a private school that you may get grief for later on. People make assumptions based on accents. If you dont want your kids saying dis, dat, dese, and dose, either drill his THs into him or send him to private.

connundrum

There are a huge amount of parents who sent there kids to private schools in order to keep up with the Jones'... who are these fcukin Jones'??

I wouldn't send my kid to a private school for educational purposes - as I don't believe that the more one pays = the smarter one's kid will be.

The only circumstance which would lead me to send my kid to private would be to do with sport, and if I believed that a private school would offer better facilities etc.

LikeOhMyGawd!

connundrum wrote:

There are a huge amount of parents who sent there kids to private schools in order to keep up with the Jones'... who are these fcukin Jones'??

I wouldn't send my kid to a private school for educational purposes ...
...The only circumstance which would lead me to send my kid to private would be to do with sport, and if I believed that a private school would offer better facilities etc.

Sport over education...you definitely have your priorities right :rolleyes:

spurious

Pighead wrote:

Well I never, Wasn't like that in Dundalk I tells ya. Pighead used to cram into a room with 30-40 smelly blokes and as far as I know all the rest of the schools around town were the same.

God bless prefabs.

The bigger the VEC, the more they can play with, so County Dublin VEC or City of Dublin VEC with 20 plus schools have a lot of leeway. Poor old Dundalk may not have had a lot to play with.

The VECs in Dublin suffered badly from a mistaken notion that they were not 'academic' - in fact, when they were first set up, the brightest went to the 'Tech.' and many are heads of industry today. However, in Ireland, 'university' was seen as better than direct employment from school, so when 'free' education came in, the stampede to the traditional university suppliers, like brothers and convent schools occurred. This left the VEC to service the group the voluntary secondary sector didn't want - the kids with learning difficulties etc.

Nevertheless, they picked up the ball and ran with it, so much so that now, we get children coming to us after Junior Cert. having had 'problems' in their other schools, only to discover an undiagnosed learning problem. The City of Dublin VEC has its own educational psychological service, so no waiting up to four years for an appointment like in the secondary schools.

In my opinion, there's no such thing as a 'good' school - there are good teachers and good students, they're not always in the same place. There are children who want to learn and there are supportive and non-supportive parents. No amount of fee-paying will get an unmotivated child whose parents are not bothered about education top marks in the Leaving Cert. Likewise, there are many teachers in this country whose classes achieve top marks regularly who would not be able to cope with a child arriving at 12 reading at the level of a 6 yr old.

I'm not exaggerating - that is going on in schools. We had a kid last year improved four years in his reading in one school year - terrible, but his reading level was purely because of non-stimulation. Once he got into our library scheme and had to read at least one book a week, he flourished. Anyway, I could ramble for ever.

Fee-paying schools, go for it if it's what you want, but the most important factor in how a child will do is the home.

Dave!

Whenever I have a kid I'll put them in public school probably... The main reason is that there's a better mix there... poor people can't afford to go to private schools, but rich people can still go to public schools. therefore there is a more even ratio of "poor" to "rich" kids in public schools, which I think it's good for your child to be exposed to (rather than just one class).

Also, while private schools do generally have better teachers (at least in my experience), that doesn't really mean sh*t if your child is lazy. Likewise, just cos they have a sh*tty teacher in a public school doesn't mean that they're gonna fail. The trends may show that private schooled kids in general get higher grades, but it's still easy to do well in public school if you want to. Lots of people get all A1's in public school.

And at the end of the day, school is more than just about grades...

(In general though, public school does suck on the sports front)

connundrum

LikeOhMyGawd! wrote:

Sport over education...you definitely have your priorities right :rolleyes:

Eh, yeah.

What I said was that I don't believe there to be a difference in the quality of education given between private or public schools. A kid is either going to do well or badly depending on the parenting (my job) and his/her natural ability (God's job). There were as many 500+ point results coming out of my CBS school as there were out of most private schools back in 2001 (when I did my leaving).

If another school ie. boarding school/private school can offer notably better sporting facilities than the local public schools - then yes, I really would consider sending the kid there if he/she was mad into the sports.

I would have loved to have been sent to a private school with swimming pool facilities as I was mad into swimming and had to give it up in secondary school as the town's pool was closed for renovations.

Tchocky

Pighead wrote:

Well I never, Wasn't like that in Dundalk I tells ya. Pighead used to cram into a room with 30-40 smelly blokes and as far as I know all the rest of the schools around town were the same. We ended up building crappy freezing cold prefabs out the back of the school because of the sheer numbers.

They were bleedin' awful alright.

I'd like to think I'd put my kids through normal school, not sure what types they'd be mixing with in fee-paying....

gah, such a snob I am

Pighead

spurious wrote:

In my opinion, there's no such thing as a 'good' school - there are good teachers and good students, they're not always in the same place. There are children who want to learn and there are supportive and non-supportive parents. No amount of fee-paying will get an unmotivated child whose parents are not bothered about education top marks in the Leaving Cert. Likewise, there are many teachers in this country whose classes achieve top marks regularly who would not be able to cope with a child arriving at 12 reading at the level of a 6 yr old.

Wow Pighead didn't realise VEC's had come on so much. Thats impressive.

Regarding the bit I quoted above do you not think that little Johnny will prosper better in a private school if hes surrounded by lads who are generally getting better grades than him. In a public school if your grades are bad you can just start hanging out with the lost causes who know they're not gonna go to college and who are just going through the motions to keep their folks happy.

Being in those surroundings might make him buck up his ideas. Pigheads point here is that maybe privaye schools can be very beneficial for people to reach their potentials.

Jotter

I would like to send my kids to the best school possible with the best facilities regardless of whether its fee paying or not. In saying that if there were 2 schools that rated exactly the same, one public and one private I would definately use the public school. I went to public school got on very well met a great mix of people rich middle of road and poor and not only got a good education but also got good life education, which I think is far more important- my friends that I grew up with in area all went to the same private school and to this day are more sheltered in their attitudes and their parents have commented to my parents about how myself and my sis have done well for ourselves a lot quicker and with more ease than their kids - this was in a conversation about school choices and by the parents own admission they sent their kids to this school bec it was private so they assumed a better education for their kids.

My husband went to private school and hated it so much he left in 5th yr and completed his leaving cert at home instead. Hes of the same opinion that what matters in a school is the facilities and the attitudes of teachers and students not whether its fee paying or not.

LikeOhMyGawd!

connundrum wrote:

Eh, yeah.

What I said was that I don't believe there to be a difference in the quality of education given between private or public schools. A kid is either going to do well or badly depending on the parenting (my job) and his/her natural ability (God's job). There were as many 500+ point results coming out of my CBS school as there were out of most private schools back in 2001 (when I did my leaving).

If another school ie. boarding school/private school can offer notably better sporting facilities than the local public schools - then yes, I really would consider sending the kid there if he/she was mad into the sports.

I would have loved to have been sent to a private school with swimming pool facilities as I was mad into swimming and had to give it up in secondary school as the town's pool was closed for renovations.

So, all things educational being equal, sporting facilities might tilt the balance for you? Fair enough, can't argue with that:)

Ballyman

How much, approx, is it to send a child to one of these fee paying schools in Dublin for a year??

Would it be cheaper in say Clongowes in Kildare than it would be in Dublin??

magpie

The benefits of a classical education, dear boy. Depends on whether you want your children to be successful, genteel, eloquent and worldly professionals or Marketing Managers for Spar with a Croke Park season ticket.

Would it be cheaper in say Clongowes in Kildare than it would be in Dublin??

Certainly not! Clongowes is where all the spud-thick farmers, property developers and other self-made persons from a 'trade' background send their half-witted children to try and turn them into gentlemen. They are expected to pay heftily for the priviledge.

toffo

If they want to go, i'd have no problem with it. Personally I don't think it will make too much of a difference, every school has its swats/dossers/scumbags.

ferdi

i was put through private school...probably made no real difference....everyone in my year went to college however. pretty much everyone from that school goes to college with decent/excellent grades and confidence created by a certain style of education and ethos..

ferdi

magpie wrote:

Clongowes is where all the spud-thick farmers, property developers and other self-made persons from a 'trade' background send their half-witted children to try and turn them into gentlemen. They are expected to pay heftily for the priviledge.

i've never hear it put quite so well before

Pighead.Do you have sprogs yourself?

Sangre

Probably send them to private, sure I'll be loaded anyway. Better facilities and usually a better attitute (LC wise).
Would probably send them to my school if I can, great facilities (gym, sports hall, pool, pitches, kiln, music room, theathre et.,), great teahers, great fun, great lads, small enough year.
25% of my year got over 500+, average away above the national.

Also in 8 years there I never once heard someone being slagged for being poor.

ferdi

Deleted User wrote:

Pighead.Do you have sprogs yourself?

you mean piglets?

Cardinal

Well I actually live closer to a private school than to the public secondary school that I went to. If I had kids and was choosing a school for them I'd definately choose to send them to the public school that I attended rather than the private school nearby. The public school I went to was excellent, well equiped and had some great teachers. I haven't heard such good things about the private school recently.

Pighead

magpie wrote:

The benefits of a classical education, dear boy. Depends on whether you want your children to be successful, genteel, eloquent and worldly professionals or Marketing Managers for Spar with a Croke Park season ticket.



Certainly not! Clongowes is where all the spud-thick farmers, property developers and other self-made persons from a 'trade' background send their half-witted children to try and turn them into gentlemen. They are expected to pay heftily for the priviledge.

Ha ha, Pighead knows these lads only too well. A lad from back home went to Clongowes. He was raw as fcuking ropes before he went in there. Farmers son who probably arrived at the opening day in his wellies. Anyway by the time he finished in the school he'd developed this flat posh accent and had bagged himself a posh dublin chick.

Hes an accountant now and him and his posh ladyfriend got married last year. The wedding reception was a scream. The posh girls family were decked out in their Armani and Stella McCartney suits discussing the finer points French Champagne while the farmers were downing pints of bulmers arguing about how many acres the hotel and surrounding areas covered. Lets just say there was a definite segregation as the night progressed.

Pighead

Deleted User wrote:

Pighead.Do you have sprogs yourself?

Pighead has no kids as of yet The_Dazzler. Assuming my sperm is in working order then I'd hope to have one by 2012.

Pythia

Absolutely. I went to a private school and the kids will be doing the same, when I have them of course!
You get a broader range of subjects for a start. Better results.

Dave!

Sangre wrote:

Also in 8 years there I never once heard someone being slagged for being poor.

That's probably cos they were all rich, lol

TempestSabre

I reckon it depends entirely on the enviroment (if it suits the child) and if there are decent teachers. I had a run of awful teachers in school and in hindsight now I realise I suffered because of it.

Pighead

Pythia wrote:

Absolutely. I went to a private school and the kids will be doing the same, when I have them of course!
You get a broader range of subjects for a start. Better results.

Did you not get stick for being a snob from the public school kids? Or did you just ignore their petty jibes.
Speaking of ignore, don't you have Pighead on ignore?

I went to a public scool and got a fairly good leaving(not good enough to do pharmacy though).I think it is what you do yourself that matters.My principal actually advised me to go to private school for the leaving cert as he reckoned I need the constant supervision of study to get me to work.Bah

They all come out of private school around Leitrim with notions that trinity is the only good uni in Ireland.Stupid eejits.

Sangre

DaveMcG wrote:

That's probably cos they were all rich, lol

Your parents could pull in 100k+ p.a. amd still be poor to some of these kids!

magpie

Absolutely. I went to a private school

Alex? Mt Anville? Loreto?

Dave!

Pighead wrote:

Did you not get stick for being a snob from the public school kids? Or did you just ignore their petty jibes.
Speaking of ignore, don't you have Pighead on ignore?

They don't let public school kids past the gates into her castle! I tried to scale the wall, but got caught in the barbed wire

Pighead

DaveMcG wrote:

They don't let public school kids past the gates into her castle! I tried to scale the wall, but got caught in the barbed wire

And if you had of scaled the wall succesfully you would have been greeted by Pythia in her tight, arse defining jodhpurs, looking at you with hate in her eye whilst yelling "Release the Hounds"

Pighead

Pighead wrote:

And if you had of scaled the wall succesfully you would have been greeted by Pythia in her tight, arse defining jodhpurs, looking at you with hate in her eye whilst yelling "Release the Hounds"

What she do with the Roscommon boyfriend then?Surely he be needed for when the cows are a calvin'
Not much use if your child knows how to Talk "d4" butdoes not know how to rope the calf out.What use would he be in the "whest"?

Dave!

Deleted User wrote:

What she do with the Roscommon boyfriend then?Surely he be needed for when the cows are a calvin'
Not much use if your child knows how to Talk "d4" butdoes not know how to rope the calf out.What use would he be in the "whest"?

...I hope you're talkin about the wesht of Blackrock like... Ya think that kid's gonna be mixin with savages? She rescued her fella from them, she'll be damned if she's gonna lose the kid to them!

Pythia

magpie wrote:

Alex? Mt Anville? Loreto?

Yep.

eamoss

Pighead wrote:

Well I never, Wasn't like that in Dundalk I tells ya. Pighead used to cram into a room with 30-40 smelly blokes and as far as I know all the rest of the schools around town were the same. We ended up building crappy freezing cold prefabs out the back of the school because of the sheer numbers.

That wasnt the De La Salle by any chance?

I have just finished 6 years in private school(Grammar) and I can tell you that I found it great really enjoyed my time there. As for facilities well we had good sports like an astro, astro tennis courts, gravel pitch & a big field beside Oriel Park for sports day. But we had a very small gym and some of my classes were bedrooms for teachers before they became class rooms like the room I was in for Tech Drawin & Construction(theory) had a kitchen where the blackboard was. But they r startin 2 build a new building & a new gym, they did have to start when I left :mad:

I think that the student and staff get on a lot better than in other schools but that is only from 4th yr I found that!

thebaz

i went to both private and public, and looking back for education and sport , private was better .. BUT .. in general private produce a less rounded person , as you can be surrounded only with moneyed people and peers , and get a distorted view of the world . the best i think are private schools that take in the less well off on scholarship , so you get a good mix .. belvedere i think does this now !

Pythia

Pythia wrote:

Yep.

So you went to three different private schools?You definitely got the "rounded" education experience!

DaveMcG

DaveMcG wrote:

...I hope you're talkin about the wesht of Blackrock like... Ya think that kid's gonna be mixin with savages? She rescued her fella from them, she'll be damned if she's gonna lose the kid to them!

Wait she is in Fine Gael and is not going to help out on the farm?:eek: Cosgrave would be spinning in his grave.A Fine Gael woman who was not married to a big farmer?

I went to a grammar school which is just like a private school I suppose because they don't really have fee paying ones in the North. You get in by exam so everybody is pretty strong academically. I was in the bottom stream for maths, and the standard was still pretty high compared to English public schools which is where I was before. Because it wasn't fee paying, there was a good variety of people from all social groups (the lack of that would be my main issue with private schools). The uniform rules in particular were very strict, you weren't even allowed a pair of stud earrings. On the plus side that meant there was less pressure to look good and have the latest clothes. There was very little bullying there, as class sizes were small so teachers paid attention to the pupils, and people in general were quite tolerant of others. I had been bullied badly at my school in England for stupid things like the colour of my skin, and I didn't get any of that at my N.I school. There was very little fighting as well, and less bitchiness among the girls than in my previous school. In general it was just a nicer place to go to school, you could focus on your studies instead of worrying about people beating you up.

Ballyman

So nobody has a clue how much these schools actually cost per year then??

LadyJ

Pythia wrote:

Absolutely. I went to a private school and the kids will be doing the same, when I have them of course!
You get a broader range of subjects for a start. Better results.

Have to say,I went from a holy faith school to a private school in town and I can tell you now I'd have done much better if I'd stayed put.

Facilities in the public school were much better. No major difference in the choice of subjects and still the same amount of knackers in the private school. Only thing that seemed to increase was the number of orange faced girls.

It cost 5 grand to go to the private school and it was a complete waste of money. There was no gym, no musical activities, nothing at all.

At the end of the day,it depends on the individual and what they make of the school that they are in. Private schools don't wave a wand and suddenly you're a genius.