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Insane private school fees.

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    #242
    jobbridge4life
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,759 ✭✭✭jobbridge4life


    shruikan2553 wrote: »
    Can you put me down for an order of a first class honours degree, good project and some interview skills please? Or can I preorder and collect them from the society shop later?

    Funny, but beyond humour it adds nothing to your argument. No one exists in isolation. You are the product of your parents, your environment etc and your own innate personality, skills, talents and choices (which are in turn influenced by society).


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    #243
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    eyescreamcone wrote: »
    In spite of what the league tables say I don't believe that Irish fee paying schools are much better than the free schools academically.

    Fee paying schools will attract children from families who want their children to do well academically and will encourage them to perform. These parents will also pay for grinds and take extra interest in their children's performance. Also, these parents will probably have done well academically themselves and will have experience and brains to pass on to their children.
    The advantage is not given to the children by the school - it's given to them by the parents.

    Fee paying schools ARE much better than free schools in extra curricular work though.
    Better coaching and facilities make a huge difference.
    At the 2012 Olympics 65% of Team GBs medals came from fee paying schools.
    Also check out where the Irish Rugby team came from.

    The quality of work done outside the classroom is worth paying for on its own.

    Have you the faintest notion that some people can't afford to send their kids to fee paying?


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    #244
    robman60
    Registered Users Posts: 2,223 ✭✭✭robman60


    I'm a 1st year college student who attended a non fee paying school. I actually wasn't friends with anyone who goes to a private school prior to coming to college but have befriended several here. The most marked difference I notice is with regard to extra-curriculars and community.

    My school covered the syllabi and got us through but I never felt there was a strong sense of community in the place. Many of my course mates attended the more prestigious Dublin private schools and their experience seems quite different. I get the distinct feeling they leave with an affinity for the place, and a grounding in a wider range of pursuits rather than just GAA.

    Academically, the difference seems minimal. I think it's true that they had more motivated peers (which is undoubtedly a help) but I still don't think it's worth the money. They definitely didn't encounter as wide a range of people as I did but there are positives and negatives to that.


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    #245
    eyescreamcone
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,562 ✭✭✭eyescreamcone


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Have you the faintest notion that some people can't afford to send their kids to fee paying?

    Some people can't afford to pay for fee paying schools. Some people can afford it but decide not to pay.
    Good luck to all.


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    #246
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    eyescreamcone wrote: »
    Some people can't afford to pay for fee paying schools. Some people can afford it but decide not to pay.
    Good luck to all.

    Logic isn't the strong point of the fee school supporter.


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    #247
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    What part are you disagreeing with? That parents should not be able to pay for extracurricular activities for their child, that they can't supplement their child's formal education at home, that a good education is not just about academia?

    Do you want to 'dumb down' education to the lowest level achievable by the state? It seems that's the only way you would achieve your 'standardisation'.

    All I'm asking for is a standard pupil teacher ratio and the abolishment of fee collection. That's it. I'm asking for the state's involvement in education to be standardised.


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    #248
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    All I'm asking for is a standard pupil teacher ratio and the abolishment of fee collection. That's it. I'm asking for the state's involvement in education to be standardised.

    Well the DEIS schools won't be happy.

    And that won't standardise all schools. You're very naive if you think that.


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    #249
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    Well the DEIS schools won't be happy.

    And that won't standardise all schools. You're very naive if you think that.

    Well as I said Deis schools don't help the problem. What problems do you see with standardising schools? No one has actually answered that.


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    #250
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Well as I said Deis schools don't help the problem. What problems do you see with standardising schools? No one has actually answered that.

    Well the main one would be that it is impossible, and if we were to try, we would have to standardise down to the lowest common denominator because there isn't the money or in many cases the will to drag underperforming schools up by their boot straps. Now while that may strike you as 'fair', it would certainly strike me as immoral.


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    #251
    jobbridge4life
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,759 ✭✭✭jobbridge4life


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    Well the main one would be that it is impossible, and if we were to try, we would have to standardise down to the lowest common denominator because there isn't the money or in many cases the will to drag underperforming schools up by their boot straps. Now while that may strike you as 'fair', it would certainly strike me as immoral.

    Why immoral? Not necessarily disagreeing just interested to see your reasoning.


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    #252
    eyescreamcone
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,562 ✭✭✭eyescreamcone


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Logic isn't the strong point of the fee school supporter.

    In your opinion?


    What's the difference between someone paying for 3k worth of grinds or 3k worth of fee paying school?

    If you can afford it pay for it - if you can't then don't

    Similar to Vhi in my opinion


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    #253
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    jobbridge4life wrote: »
    Why immoral? Not necessarily disagreeing just interested to see your reasoning.

    There's no great amount of reasoning going on in my head:pac: Schools that are performing well and serving their students, helping them be 'the best they can be' should be encouraged. I think it is immoral to force them to under perform just so that they can be as bad as the school down the road.


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    #254
    evolving_doors
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭evolving_doors


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Well as I said Deis schools don't help the problem. What problems do you see with standardising schools? No one has actually answered that.

    Welllll I answered it actually... namely by way of saying you CANT truly standardise everything unless you introduce quotas for positive discrimination .. and that will never happen... too many variables in normal human society.


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    #255
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Logic isn't the strong point of the fee school supporter.

    As a boarding school veteran I'll have to disagree with that, since my attending that school was the result of impeccable logic on my parents behalf.


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    #256
    Merkin
    Registered Users Posts: 8,230 ✭✭✭Merkin


    Candie wrote: »
    As a boarding school veteran I'll have to disagree with that, since my attending that school was the result of impeccable logic on my parents behalf.

    Me too. I think there are a lot of very large chips on numerous shoulders being displayed in this thread.


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    #257
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    Well the main one would be that it is impossible, and if we were to try, we would have to standardise down to the lowest common denominator because there isn't the money or in many cases the will to drag underperforming schools up by their boot straps. Now while that may strike you as 'fair', it would certainly strike me as immoral.

    It would be impossible to normalise student teacher ratios? What's the lowest common denominator? Surely the school matters least as a lot of posters maintain. If this were true the same students would come out tops.


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    #258
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Candie wrote: »
    As a boarding school veteran I'll have to disagree with that, since my attending that school was the result of impeccable logic on my parents behalf.

    And ability to pay. I liaise with disadvantaged students once they get to college (after a fee years delay). Most of them would have killed to go to a top school. They have the right idea logically but they're lacking the parental funding to do so. Logic isn't the only determination.


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    #259
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    It would be impossible to normalise student teacher ratios? What's the lowest common denominator? Surely the school matters least as a lot of posters maintain. If this were true the same students would come out tops.

    Are you trying not to understand on purpose? I fear for the quality of educators in 'academia' all right.


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    #260
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Merkin wrote: »
    Me too. I think there are a lot of very large chips on numerous shoulders being displayed in this thread.

    I do have a chip on my shoulder. I can't help it. I went to a crap school won a scholarship and eventually a Irish research council PhD grant and now liaise with students from disadvantaged communities. They are just as intelligent as people born to parents able to afford a good school yet they have the odds stacked against them. It results in students with no interest in science (for example) getting into science over a student who loves it.


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    #261
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    A recurring theme amongst the same posters on Boards is to want to dismiss those with interest in equitable education as socialist ect. I have an interest in getting students who should be in science into science. That's it.


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    #262
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    Are you trying not to understand on purpose? I fear for the quality of educators in 'academia' all right.

    Understand what point exactly? I disagree with your point that:

    A: Reducing gaps between schools would be impossible

    And

    B: Lowering of standards across the board would be required.


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    #263
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    And ability to pay. I liaise with disadvantaged students once they get to college (after a fee years delay). Most of them would have killed to go to a top school. They have the right idea logically but they're lacking the parental funding to do so. Logic isn't the only determination.

    As if I said it was. I was responding to the direct insult aimed at those who choose private education.
    Logic isn't the strong point of the fee school supporter.

    An unfair, insulting, and untrue generalisation, and a completely unnecessary thing to say about the thousands of parents who choose this route for their kids. Unless you know them all personally, which I doubt.

    In an ideal world all schools would be equal in every way, from the calibre of the teachers to the standard of the buildings. But it's not like that in the real world and the free market where education is a commodity as well as a right.

    Removing choices from one set of parents will not confer more choices on others, especially where there is no State funding for the private school sector, as in the UK where I was educated.


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    #264
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Understand what point exactly? I disagree with your point that:

    A: Reducing gaps between schools would be impossible

    And

    B: Lowering of standards across the board would be required.

    Ok. Take private schools out of the equation. How do you propose standardising a top performing state school with one at the bottom. Given the marked differences you will see in demographics, commitment to education, attendance etc etc etc how do you propose to improve the standards in the bottom ranking school to make it as successful as the better school. Given that the DES has been trying for years to improve standards in schools with limited success, how do you propose we do it.

    Like I said before, I think you'd be more successful developing a standardised testing system to weed out the clever kids.
    The other point of course that you haven't touched on is that there are huge barriers to education outside of the CAO system. That's another area that could be addressed before we tell parents that they aren't allowed help Jonny with his maths homework.


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    #265
    Berserker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,046 ✭✭✭Berserker


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    I do have a chip on my shoulder. I can't help it. I went to a crap school won a scholarship and eventually a Irish research council PhD grant and now liaise with students from disadvantaged communities.

    I like you came from a "disadvantaged" (load of BS in my opinion) background and I too went on to university with the aid of a scholarship. Citing a person's background for their failure is a cop out. A girl I went to post primary school with from my estate was academically brilliant, got 550+ points in her LC, despite the fact that she was expecting at the time, never bothered her backside to fill out the CAO form and has spent every day since on welfare. Every teacher she had and the career guidance team tried their very hardest to encourage her to educate herself further but she just ignored them. I speak to her quite often and I still tell her that she should go back and study. She has an interest in and a superb, self-taught, knowledge of dietetics. She could probably still walk into that course with her LC results but she just isn't "really bothered".

    An individual who wants to succeed will, in my opinion. Background, social or education, doesn't define what you will become. My OH is a doctor and she came from a working class background.
    steddyeddy wrote: »
    It results in students with no interest in science (for example) getting into science over a student who loves it.

    You are bang on with this point though and it drives me up the walls. I used to lecture in Computer Science in a NUI and the amount of students who fell into the course, particularly during the dot Com bubble was ridiculous. These people had no passion for Computer Science, weren't particularly suited to the subject when you looked at their academic strong points and they had chosen to study Computer Science because it was a source of well-paid work. The computer programming modules in first year had an appalling rate of failure. The students could learn information off by heart all day long but when it came to solving problems using code, they didn't have the skill set to do that or the passion to put the effort into developing that skill.

    A student with a passion for something like Comp Sci. will always out perform one who is there practical reasons.


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    #266
    padd b1975
    Registered Users Posts: 10,718 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975


    Bannasidhe wrote: »

    I reckon not many schools have 9 year olds engaged in discussing anti-Semitism while reading the Merchant of Venice.
    Now that's how you suck the fun out of childhood people!!


    :(:(


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    #267
    AdamD
    Registered Users Posts: 12,487 ✭✭✭✭AdamD


    Pretty sure I read before that Steddyeddy corrects papers in College. I fear for the former private school students whose papers he corrects, I highly doubt he does so without bias.


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    #268
    padd b1975
    Registered Users Posts: 10,718 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975


    AdamD wrote: »
    Pretty sure I read before that Steddyeddy corrects papers in College. I fear for the former private school students whose papers he corrects, I highly doubt he does so without bias.

    How would he know?


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    #269
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,803 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    padd b1975 wrote: »
    How would he know?

    Ah he'll know. The answers will be on superior quality monogramed papers.:D


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    #270
    jobbridge4life
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,759 ✭✭✭jobbridge4life


    Berserker wrote: »
    I like you came from a "disadvantaged" (load of BS in my opinion) background and I too went on to university with the aid of a scholarship. Citing a person's background for their failure is a cop out. A girl I went to post primary school with from my estate was academically brilliant, got 550+ points in her LC, despite the fact that she was expecting at the time, never bothered her backside to fill out the CAO form and has spent every day since on welfare. Every teacher she had and the career guidance team tried their very hardest to encourage her to educate herself further but she just ignored them. I speak to her quite often and I still tell her that she should go back and study. She has an interest in and a superb, self-taught, knowledge of dietetics. She could probably still walk into that course with her LC results but she just isn't "really bothered".

    An individual who wants to succeed will, in my opinion. Background, social or education, doesn't define what you will become. My OH is a doctor and she came from a working class background.

    What heart warming tales of success, unfortunately however the plural of anecdote is not evidence, its anecdotes. Moreover the two examples you cite, are they the rule or are they the exception? I think we all know the answer. We can all cite people we know or personal experience. For every tale of working class kid come good you can through up someone else will have an opposing tale.

    The fact is that those from 'disadvantaged' backgrounds do disproportionately worse in the education system, there is no shortage of research to demonstrate this. Now either that is due to institutional, socio-economic problems or it must because poor people just keep having really lazy children who don't want to succeed. Which, in all honesty, do you believe is more likely to be the case?


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    #271
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    AdamD wrote: »
    Pretty sure I read before that Steddyeddy corrects papers in College. I fear for the former private school students whose papers he corrects, I highly doubt he does so without bias.

    My supervisor corrects papers. I have no idea what school a person went to.


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