| So new research shows that independent school pupils score nearly two thirds of a GCSE grade better than otherwise comparable state school pupils (Private schools add two years of education, say researchers, 26 February).
But does this necessarily indicate greater attainment? Might it not indicate the well-known “halo effect” that operates when the grades awarded by assessors are affected (positively or negatively) by their expectations of the different individuals or groups whose work they are assessing.
That factor might also help explain previous research reported by the Guardian showing that pupils from comprehensive schools are likely to achieve higher class degrees (even in the most academically selective universities) than independent (and grammar) school pupils with similar A-levels and GCSE results.
Professor Derek Rowntree
(Author of Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them?)
Banbury, Oxfordshire
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• Durham University’s educational research is of high quality but reports of its findings can be confusing. It is said, for example, that the attainment gap between those who attend private schools and those who do not is “larger than previously thought and starting from the first years of primary school aged four”. What private schools did these children attend at the age of four that propelled them up “two thirds of a GCSE grade” 12 years later?
No great scholar myself, I attribute such academic success as I achieved to the fact that, from the age of eight to 18, I was taught by experienced teachers who were, almost without exception, graduates of Oxbridge. That my parents paid for this had nothing to do with how successfully or otherwise those teachers taught me.
Sir Peter Newsam
Pickering, North Yorkshire
• The explanation of the “two years of extra schooling” is simple: every day, the pupils do at least a couple of hours “prep”, and many have Saturday morning classes.
Fr Julian Dunn
Great Haseley, Oxfordshire
• If private schools add two years of education, part of the explanation possibly lies in John Harris’s article in G2 on 2 February – “Why schools just can’t get the teachers”.
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As a retired teacher, I am convinced that the real advantage the private sector has is small classes. Marking 16 exercise books is much less daunting than marking 32 – and can be done more thoroughly. With only 16, it is possible to get to know each individual better and to be able to discuss the work on an individual basis. The G2 front cover features “long hours, endless admin, drunk parents”.
Teachers in the private sector still enjoy the freedoms I enjoyed in my younger years – flexibility in the curriculum and in the way it is taught. The private sector does not have to follow the national curriculum and certainly does not have to waste time on SATs. I am pretty sure that the admin required of teachers is far less. I suspect discipline problems are minimal, too. Teachers in the private sector are motivated to teach because they know that they can get on with it without externally imposed distractions.
Keith Potter
Gunnislake, Cornwall
• Interesting as your article “Private school is still surest route to front rank of professions” (24 February) was, it appears that, in common with most of the media, you have omitted the group of professionals with the greatest potential to balance the economy and create real wealth: engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians. Almost all will be members of professional institutions, meaning they have been educated to degree level (many will also have gained a further academic qualification), and will certainly have been required to demonstrate their competence before obtaining full membership of the appropriate professional body. It would be interesting to know how many engineers etc have been educated at independent schools – in particular Eton and Harrow. I admit to spending my schooldays at what was then a direct grant school (Kimbolton) before reading aeronautical engineering at Imperial College. After that I have spent many happy years with a consulting engineering firm.
Michael Holmes
Otford, Kent
• The real scandal of private schools’ dominance (Our private school elite’s dominance is not just unfair – it damages us all, 25 February) is that their advantages are partly purchased with public money. Business rate reliefs of £700m a year are only part of the picture. For example, most private school teachers are educated and trained at public expense and continue to benefit from the state-subsidised teachers’ pension scheme. All these reliefs are subsidies from the non-privately-funded taxpayer to enable wealthier households to obtain advantages that are denied to the great majority of the population. |