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It was a real honour for me to host the Express and Echo ‘Teen Team’ awards at the Thistle Hotel earlier this week. As you'll see from the special pull-out in this week's edition of the paper, the event celebrated success in our local schools. It was fantastic to see at first hand what many of our youngsters are achieving, despite a perception that budget pressures these days are compromising standards. This is clearly not true. There were winners from both the private and state sectors, and it started me thinking about the relative merits of both.

My parents in their wisdom sent me to Central Junior School (now St. Leonards) until the age of 11 and then into the privately run Exeter School. So I have experienced both sides of the fence.
I have to own up here to not being the most gifted academically, so I suppose the few ‘O’ levels I went away with perhaps didn't merit the financial outlay. 
However there are many people I know who still claim that the only education worth having is one that you pay for. They argue that those schools have a monopoly of motivated teachers and, together with all the resources at their disposal, are the only ones able to maximise the potential of their students. Results pretty much guaranteed, if you like, as long as you hand over your cash!

Don't believe a word of it. While we do have some excellent and highly rated private schools locally, there’s so much more to the story than that.

I grew up in Earl Richard’s Road South in Exeter which leads down to Isca college of Media Arts. In my school days of course it was the old Priory School, and I can remember getting some good natured banter (I think) from the Priory pupils as I walked past them in my Exeter School uniform.  Back then, 35+ years ago, Priory had a mixed reputation.
There’s absolutely no doubt that since then, that school has undergone a remarkable transformation. It was already well underway before the private finance initiative (PFI) across the city gave it, and other schools, a massive push forward.
I've been lucky enough to have had guided tours at Isca and Westexe in recent weeks and I was really impressed with what I saw. PFI funding schemes may have their detractors and clearly there are pros and cons, but one thing you can't argue with is the standard of facilities available now to the majority of teenagers in our local schools.
Providing a better environment definitely works. As I walked around, I saw at first hand just how motivated the youngsters were, and it seemed to me that the majority didn’t need too much ‘persuasion’ to learn ! 
I’m convinced bright kids will now succeed in the state system, and there is real evidence that others are not just allowed to disappear, academically, without trace.

I am sure that the private versus state school debate will continue for some parents. For the obvious financial reasons most others won’t even be able to contemplate the choice. The Teen awards illustrated clearly how the gap is closing, and if I was 35 years younger I suspect my Mum and Dad would be sending  me to the school at the bottom of our road !