State and Private

There is a huge gulf between the quality of education you get at a private school compared with what you get at the average state school. There are several reasons for this: private schools have more money to spend on each pupil so they can have smaller classes and they often select potential pupils by ability, so they don't have to deal with so many hard-of-thinking. Competitive sports are strongly encouraged and a huge range of after school activities are offered. Parents are also generally more cooperative as they are paying good money for their offspring to attend and on a statistical basis, Harry and Henrietta tend to be better behaved than Lee and Lewis, so less time is wasted dealing with constant low level disruption.

However, here are two additional factors that you must promise me never to mention out loud in the state staffroom...

Firstly their teachers tend on average to be better academically qualified in the subjects they teach than their state counterparts and they haven't all had their heads filled with nonsense on a PGCE course. The standard retort that they wouldn't last five minutes in a tough inner city comp is also true however.

Secondly private schools still teach in a fairly traditional fashion and insist on a high standard of discipline, which funnily enough leads to success, both academically and in employment. In the state sector however, we have embraced every fashion, fad and barking lunacy with an enthusiasm which makes me want to hold my head in my hands and weep tears of despair. (Group work, discussion, peer review, poster making, self expression and varied mediums of learning spring to mind, but these are only the tip of the iceberg). Why not just mix up a random selection of words and invent the next one yourself.

See, I told you not to mention them.