You can make the grade at a state school
Shona Sibary is in despair that her daughter Flo has dropped out of her private education to be a ‘jelly-shot girl’ (Mail). but as a 17-year-old a-level student, i was annoyed to read that one of Shona’s reasons for placing her daughter in private education was that she had read about ‘the poor standards at many state schools’. The Sibarys could have saved themselves this trauma about their daughter’s decision if they had remained open-minded about state schools, which unfairly often receive a bad press — perhaps your brother-in-law’s second cousin’s friend has told you a horror story about the school down the road or, heaven forbid, its ofsted score ten years ago was ‘good’ rather than ‘outstanding’. having friends at schools in both the state and private sector, i have seen for myself that if you are willing to work, you can achieve the top grades regardless of which school you attend. i’m in-between, as i attend a grammar school. yes, my parents paid for my tutoring so i could pass the 11-plus and get a competitive place, and i am eternally grateful. but i also have friends who passed the exam without tutoring. although results aren’t everything, i also know that my school’s results are a lot higher than those of private schools in the area. not only that, but attending a grammar school means that although everyone is clever, people come from different backgrounds, so there isn’t so much competition between pupils over wealth and materialistic items. Maybe it is because we are at a similar stage in our lives, but i can wholly understand and sympathise with Flo in wanting to make her own decisions. Perhaps if her parents hadn’t been so adamant about sending her to private school in the first place and instead had realised the positives that state and grammar school have to offer, Flo’s outlook on school and a-levels might have been different.
HOLLY CRITCHLOW, Prenton, Merseyside.