My children were educated in Stornoway, and such problems as they had were not the fault of the school. On an Island there is no choice, but the more articulate parents and the parents who are teachers send their children to the same school as everyone else. That keeps standards up.

My granddaughter has just completed her first year at school in Glasgow. It is in one of the better-off areas admittedly, but we and the parents have nothing but praise for the entire operation.

I myself went to an independent school. It wasn’t obvious to me at the time that it was a great advantage. The really gifted had a higher level of support, but the music tuition in the Corporation schools was far more developed.

I did get to know interesting people: four MP’s, two murderers and a spy.

We know that the only predictor of success at school and university is the level of parental education, so the likelihood is that most places in Scotland you would be wasting your money on private schools.

The SNP policy is to preserve rural schools and to avoid busing children. In cities where there are several schools within 1 or 2 miles then closure and amalgamation is an option.

In a village with a small school and nothing for ten miles then retention is the only real way forward. As far as I am aware with the possible exception of the Tories no one is seriously advocating any new faith or sponsored schools for Scotland.

In fact we don’t have any city academies and virtually no grammar schools. As far as I am aware we don’t really have middle schools either, it’s just primary 5 to 11 with a nursery for 3 and 4 year olds now pretty much the norm and after that it’s secondary school from 12 to 16 or later.

Beyond that there are traditional private schools. Independent schools in Scotland only educate just over 30,000 pupils out of 715,000 in primary and secondary , about 4%.

Peter.

It’s not that more educated people “work the system” more than less educated people.

The finding-if I understood it correctly-is that they tend to take up places in the independent schools more than do those with a less educated background.

I don’t find that surprising.

What is important is that the impetus for higher standards imparted by the independent schools to all local schools ( which the report acknowledges) works to the benefit of all-including those who are unable to appreciate the significane, or essential features of, good educational standards.

I found it most interesting that Swedes can talk unashamedly of “better educated” and “less well educated” as features of society, without resorting to value judgements about those conditions, or expressing them in terms of “class”

Your reference to “public schools” is interesting-but not relevant to the Tory proposal-or the Swedish Model.

These independent schools are available to all parents who may may take their state funding with them.I understand that they will be non-selective-though I sincerely hope will be allowed to stream by academic ability.

For what it’s worth, I firmly believe that public schools generally leave less to chance than state schools (having been to one, and done a spot of teaching in both).

What I’d prefer to see is much greater adoption in the state sector of what public schools do better.

“School Choice and it’s effects in Sweden”-

It gave me a “do you mean” to correct the punctuation-and the first search result is the paper in question.

Try again