Public School or State School
Nowadays many people in the UK send their children to public schools. With public schools, I am referring to so called boarding school, which are schools where one can send one’s child to both live and go to school. At the age of 8, many parents send their children away to these schools with the knowledge that one might only see them once or twice a month. What are the arguments for and against sending away one’s child to a school like this when there are state schools? And in addition, what am I in favour of – a public school or a state school?
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The writing should be more authoritative – if writing to argue, you should be presenting your view as fact. The candidate writes fairly passively in this respect which is bad – you must come across as aggressive and argumentative so as not to have the piece confused with ‘inform’ or ‘persuade’. The candidate also uses some odd turns of phrase such as “get more independent†which break up the flow of the text. Try to refrain from using these so as to ensure that the argument flows well. Overall the piece presents some good points although they should be expanded and the quality of writing improved.
Level of analysis
The points made are good, taking into account a wide range of issues and presenting the opposing view to that of the author very well, but they could be expanded more, explaining how they affect the child for instance. Saying that many parents send children away to boarding school is good – statistics and such can be fabricated if they add to the argument, which is a very useful technique. One thing about the structure though – separate points should have their own self contained paragraphs rather than have two or three points per paragraph. This breaks them up and makes it easier for the reader to see clear cut statements in the argument.
Response to question
The candidates response to the question is very good, focusing well on the exact issue with no superfluous details – something that is desired for this style of English writing. The title could possibly be changed from ‘public school’ to ‘boarding school’ – a boarding school is not necessarily a public school and most of the argument seems to be about boarding rather than a school simply being public. The introduction is unnecessary; it is acceptable to succinctly state the issue that is being examined, however the candidate’s introduction is too long winded. Some of the points in it would be better in the body of the argument, added on to existing points.
