Just out of interest i was wondering what type of education people on here had.


Considering you are all working abroad and i am sure majority of you are on pretty decent money, it would be interesting to see if your education had any effect.

Although I like to think of myself as intelligent. I will have to say that I had crap for private education with the nuns back in the states. Ok, it wasn't all nuns. Some were underpaid lazy teachers.

Onto public high school. I went to a great school where teachers got paid well, and was given a great education. None of which I use now. Well, except for the German language classes I took.

I couldn't answer the poll because I experienced public, parochial (religious) and private education in the US. Public was varying from excellent to mediocre, parochial was substandard, the private high school was excellent, the tiny private elementary school was boring and not challenging.

My feeling is that teachers make the biggest difference in the quality of education provided.

Nancy

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paging Gooner ....

I think I went to the roughest school in East London, with disinterested pupils and equally disinterested teachers. I understand it is now a failing school and very low in the league tables (if they matter at all). A friend from that time who lives in the area still is trying to sell her house so her children don't have to attend there.

i had both. 7years in public, 3.5years in a catholic boarding school for boys. actually i was on 2 different boarding schools. once after the first kicked me out after 1.2 years another one took me on for 2.4 years. for a-levels i returned to public school, a classical/humanistic alignment.

i had a very good time on boarding school, away from mummy, big into discipline, rules, boundaries, good education. the boys i hung out with were fractional very rich, like the kids from a big and famous german drugstore chain for perfumes etc that attended my school. i was invited a lot to these rich kids family estates, because i was the poor child from behind the iron curtain. and i have learned a lot! especially that familys who have a old tradition, who have earned their money by generations were the most stringent when it came to the spendings of their kids. some only had a fiver a week to spend on sweets other a grand! but these nouveau-riche...disgusting! today i believe most of them do have as occupation: son. these occasions really sharpened my view on things, even though i was only 12. all these (at the time for me) very grown up discussions, the views from people to be counted to the german (business) elite are priceless! i have learned a lot of lessons and i was very astosnished that the people who were exceptionally gifted, smart, talented...were the most gentle, generous and modest ones ever. and this
leads me back to what i have read about Marc.

the education was ace, because smaller classes, good tutors, time for each individual...the library alone was massive, like a museum! sponsored by catholic church, we had a computer cabinet full of apple and ibm machines. for leisure we had everything one can imagine. in/outdoor pool, foto lab, different handicrafts groups, basketball court, footy pitch, tennis... so if there is one thing i regret in my life so far, it is that i have thrown away this opportunity. maybe i could have attended later a better university, could have had a bigger variety to chose from universitys and id be still sticking in this network which you are automatically part of...who knows?

i was raised in eastern germany, communist system. and it was that kids with good grades, above a certain level were sent to special schools... so called R-class (R=russian). they started teaching these kids russian beginning 3rd class (russian was obligatory first language, normally learned from 5th class onwards).so after the schoolsystem broke with the communist system... one of theses classes was sent to the school i went after i came back. and because these guys were really focused and smart, putting things up to a very good level, i was lucky to be among them, because the teachers simply had to deliver. some of them later/now went into science (bio, maths, physics etc.) and sometimes the teachers were struggling to answer some of these questions in class.

my upshot is: i am very lucky when it comes to my education. i cant tell any bad about public education, but my case might be different and things might have changed a lot in the last recent 13years since i have left school. if i ever have a kid i would dearly like to send it on a private school at least for a couple of years, for a-levels/graduation.

I was at a catholic state primary school in Glasgow (Scotland rather than US) (not for religious reasons, it was just the nearest) and then went on to a private secondary. The state secondary I would have gone to (ie. the one for my catchment area) wasn't exactly a nice place; the year before I went to secondary two pupils stabbed a teacher (just an example, but certainly no isolated incident). After two years at the school my family moved to Switzerland and I've been at a swiss state gymnasium since then.

I'm not from a "posh" family in a financial sense, but both my parents are academics. Mine is a similar pattern to a lot of people in Scotland; middle class parents who send their children to state primaries and private secondaries, mainly because the standards in scottish state schools are terrible. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a rule you will find that most parents will send their children to a private secondary when they can afford it.

I think the private school n Britain was probably a "better" school than the swiss state school I am at now, but the difference is minimal compared to the gulf between swiss and british state schools.

State education but via Grammar School (King's School, Grantham to be precise). That said, I'm working class through and through - got there by passing my 11 Plus. Can't say it's made much difference with regards to me being here. I did do German GCSE and A Level but that was pure coincidence. I never went to university, went straight into work after A Levels. I now work in Switzerland in a saw mill. Hard work but honest and enjoyable. As I said, I'm working class and proud of it so as long as I have my principles and my health I'm not bothered about anything else. Happy where I am!

I wents too public schools and did'tn trun out su bad.

To be honest, I'm surprised how many posh people we have... you wouldn't think it

(Tugs forelock) Did any "fag"?

Yeh, right. That'll be state schools then...

Just to clarify here for those who are not familiar with the UK education system, what are known as public schools in the UK are (mostly or all?) private schools.

To further confuse the issue there used to be Direct Grant schools, which were part private, and subsidised by central government (as opposed to normal state schools which are financed by local government).

& in Scotland, you have independant schools, which are also private ...

Apologies. Scotland has a different education system from England and Wales, though I forget the specifics.

When the direct grant schools were abolished, they had the option of going fully state run or fully private and independent. My old school chose the latter, then reverted to "assisted status" when Thatcher introduced that. Now back at fully independent.

instead of O levels - O grade

Instead of A level - Highers (taken in one year not two), however you can also sit A level if you so wish.

Thanks, and I see I got caught in a cross edit here

While I think of it, I don't know how to answer the poll, as a direct grant school was a sort of half way house between private and state school.

you mean you have never upsold yourself on a CV ?

Ssshhhhh!

The Jesuits said 'give us a child for his first 7 years and he'll be ours for life'.

I'll work it out in therapy some day.

The last option perhaps??