switching to private for the last two years

[carocaro]

Friend has DD who has been struggling with maths, 18 months behind, school useless, has been paying private tutor which has helped but not enough, she is thinking of switching her to a private school, smaller classes, more atttention, her DD is eldest of 3 and school local. Private school have said they can help her.

Anyone done this?

[sunnydelight]

I moved DS1 a couple of weeks into Y5 when he got a truly horrible/useless teacher. He had been strugging for ages and I thought smaller classes would help so sent him private. Tbh it turned out he is dyslexic and the new school didn't identify it either until Y6. I would be very clear on exactly what the new school will offer before handing over my cash - a lot of private schools are suffering at the moment and are keen for pupils. More attention in itself won't necessarily be enough if the child is struggling and your friend might find herself pressured to keep up the tutoring as well as paying fees.

We also had a problem when DS1 went to secondary as we couldn't afford private secondary in the UK. The headteacher was a bit sniffy about the fact that he had come from private and the attitude was very much "you've paid before so pay again if your child needs extra help". He hadn't done Y6 SATS (a plus in my view) so the school just dumped him in the lowest groups as they coudln't be arsed to assess him themselves. He's now in a private high school here in Oz and thriving, but your friend might want to think about the implications for later if she can't afford to continue to send her daughter private at secondary level.

[Runoutofideas]

I agree with sunnyd. I would only do it if the plan is to keep the child in private education through her secondary schooling. I think it would be hard for her to slot back into the state system after being used to more attention in the new school.

I would also think though about how academic the private school is. If it is academically highly regarded then the dd might find the pressure too much for her if she is already struggling with the maths. Being bottom of a class where all the other children are super high achievers would not do much to build her confidence.

[OneMoreMum]

We moved ours into years 3 and 4 from state where our youngest was struggling to a non-selective idependent with very small classes.

It's really helped him but although the school expects a lot from the children they don't put undue pressure on them if they're not academic, which I imagine the more traditional private schools might.

[Hardys]

are you talking about the last 2 years of primary or secondary?

[Lizcat]

My girlfriend phoned me last night to tell me how her son was getting on at the new private school he started at the beginning of this term for years 4,5 and 6.
He is a really active boy who had got dumped in the bottom group and the previous state school was all female teachers who frowned no active boys and thought wanting to write stories about fighting aliens was wrong. Plus his reading was really behind. I used to drive past them as he dragged his feet all the way to school.
Firstly she choose a school with the motto 'Happy children achieve' and where there was a lot of sport. He is already in the cross country and football teams and burning off all his excess energy outside. His achievements on the sports field have improved his self confidence and consequently his academic work is improving.
The Final comment has to be his 'my first week at my new school was the second best week of my life' the first being two days at legoland and two days at longleat.

[maggotts]

Am actually about to do this with DD2 as retrospectively wish I had done it with DD1. She is going into junior department of school that she will enter in 11+. Transition into Year 7 from state primary was very difficult for DD1 who was very poor in maths and written english at KS2. Biggest issue for her though was that she was very behind in sport (despite being G&T at primary) so that getting into teams was almost impossible. Overall effect on confidence was bad for a year or two.

She is fine now (Year 9) and very happy but it would all have been just a bit easier with a year or two lead in.

However, would second comments on it only being worthwhile if you plan on staying in the private sector. Also, need to choose school very carefully as there are plenty of very good state primaries and not so good independents so need to be sure that switch is actually to a better school.

[OneMoreMum]

We are moving our back into state secondary and I don't see how their time at private primary hasn't been worth it because we're not sticking with private.

Hopefully they will be more comfortable with the work since they are used to working hard and the improvement in their maths and English skills has to be worth having.

At the schools we've looked at the secondary curriculum and extra-curricular provision looks very similar in private & state, whereas it's very different at primary level.