INDEPENDENT EDUCATION
High academic standards
and superior facilities
he main advantages of an independent
education are high academic standards,
superior facilities and extra-curricular
opportunities.
Private schools can make higher investments in
facilities such as sports grounds and musical
education provision due to their school fees;
likewise, independent schools are able to teach
students in smaller class sizes, and may also recruit
particularly qualified teachers by offering higher
salaries.
The diversity of independent schools is in part
due to the fact that these schools are selfgoverning.
This means that, when choosing a school from
within the private education sector, parents have
more choice.
Independent schools offer varieties of
education which include various faith schools,
boarding schools, day schools, single-sex schools,
co-educational schools, selective or non-selective
schools, big schools and small schools.
Each of these factors involves individual
benefits to the quality of education offered at a
school.
Single-sex education, for example, can
capitalise on the different rates of maturity for boys
and girls, and the manner in which the two genders
tend to learn in different ways.
In addition, the depth of education offered in
many independent schools means that parents can
opt to send children to one private school for their
entire education, from four to 18.
Independent schools usually offer students the
opportunity to study in small classes and the
resultant increased individual attention is thought
to boost academic attainment and exam grades.
The Independent Schools Counsel (ISC), an
association which represents 1280 private schools
teaching around 500,000 pupils, published a
census in 2007 which reported that the average
pupil/teacher ratio of their member schools was
one teacher for every 9.7 students. Smaller classes
and a higher quantity of teaching staff may also
permit class sizes to be tailored according to
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students' individual needs.
Since independent schools do not have to
follow the National Curriculum, and organise their
own individual policies, many provide a huge
diversity of extra-curricular activities and unusual
educational initiatives. This may be particularly
evident in primary schooling, where private
schools tend not to ask their students to sit
Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) and therefore
are able to focus on other areas of education and
personal development.
Independent secondary schools, while usually
putting their students forward for national
qualifications like GCSEs and A Levels, tend to
offer an impressive array of extra-curricular
facilities and activities. These may include clubs
and societies organising activities such as debating,
horse-riding, chess, and foreign-language learning;
sports, which will often include more unusual
options such as lacrosse or badminton; voluntary
work in the local and international communities;
cult \