To want to educate my child in state but provide the straw that make it like a private education?

I don’t keep in contact with many of my uni peers, other than those I work with. I do keep in touch with many of my school friends though and we support each other in various ways.

As others have said, get then into a state school which provides some of the things that private does.
My daughters state primary - class of 20 with very experienced class teachers, specialist subjects like music, PE, languages, art taught by specialist teachers who are extra to the class tutors, which also gives some slack in the system so they never use supply teachers. Excellent facilities, a baseline of 2 TA's per class, with additional ones for children with SEN. Swimming Lessons for every child year 2 onwards, broad range of extra curricular clubs available, compete at county sports events to build confidence. Huge emphasis on oracy, excellent manners, confidence and sense of self worth. Good behaviour as head sets down very clear expectations of both children and families, excellent SEN provision so children are well supported and able to take breaks from classroom if needed. But has the benefit of being a very socially mixed intake. Pretty much every parent works, more than half I would say are in lower paid jobs - carer, TA, hairdresser, nursery nurse etc.
I honestly do not think I could find a private school which exceed their state school

Work experience that is intership program or apprenticeship can be organised for state kids too. I worked in the organisation that had always 1-2 interships on board. I don't recall that I was looking for a private school pupils in particular

Cultivate posh friends with lots of high level work contacts. My DB has a (state) school friend who went to Oxbridge, made friends which one particularly well connected individual who is very well known in certain fields and gave work experience to the guy’s DC before they applied to Oxbridge.

as it is the connections that are made that count.
What connections? Are you serious? You must be basing this assumption on the Eton legend. I have completed private education at a university level and I must admit I don't keep in touch with anybody from uni.

And none of it gives a private school experience. Absolutely no level of cultural enrichment will make a difference as it is the connections that are made that count.

It isn’t just about what you learn at private schools it’s about the connections you make there. Getting an internship at your friends Dads business for example. Also it’s the social circle you move in which help bring you or keep you up. A friend of mine flunked out of university and does a fairly ordinary job now but still lives a middle class lifestyle because he met and married a woman who is now a consultant oncologist through his old private school chums. Even though he wasn’t earning a lot he fitted in with her friends and lifestyle and his less demanding work meant that he effectively became the wife and took care of the home and kids. However if he hadn’t been privately educated would he even have been hanging out with a bunch of medical students so he could meet her? Probably not.

Its even show in studies people hire those who are like themselves so being a smart capable self starter who went to state school isn’t enough often to beat those who fit in when going for jobs. Sure there will be the odd diversity hire but mostly the good opportunities are gatekept for the children of the middle classes, more now than ever.

That exist in abundance in every state secondary around me. Add to it canoeing, hockey and many other sport activities. All clubs at schools and free

@Muchtoomuchtodo primary is different to secondary though….

Our dc’s primary had fences all around and two locked gates. The kids definitely were locked in all day there.

Same experience for me - and definitely my son.

I am quite concerned with how much the kids are mollycoddled. His private prep is like an overgrown nursery.

It's great if you can supplement your children's school education with the sort of enriching activities you mention - particularly music. The problem might be that many state schools won't be able to run orchestras or bands in the way that private schools can, and this is a tragedy. I think music is where money would be well-spent in state education - it has so many benefits across the board.

But I think it's an inescapable fact that the main advantage private schools have over state ones is that they don't have to put up with disruptive children in classes, or their families. To me, avoiding the awful waste of teachers' time and energy and the damage to other children's education which results from disruptive fellow students is the main reason I would have loved to send mine to private schools. I don't have any prinicipled opposition to private schools as some people do.

If state schools were able to easily exclude anti-social families and highly disruptive children, the whole of education in this country would be transformed and teaching would be a popular profession again. The prioritising of the doctrine of inclusivity at all costs is damaging so many children (and teachers!). Other, more suitable provision, needs to be made for those children who cannot cope with school - as it probably once was!

@HappyAsASandboy probably not legal then as you say, more best practice.

@Muchtoomuchtodo Secure to outsiders doesn’t mean locking children in all day 😆😆

Our state secondary school has 2 open access points. They’re certainly not locked in all day!

It might not be your reason but it is a benefit that cannot be replicated in state schools.

It's the opposite in my kids' comprehensive. A bit of babysitting in year 7, a bit less in Year 8, but by year 10 it's a lunchtime detention if you forget your PE kit. Exams/assessments twice a term. I think these things vary a lot between schools, so it's hard to generalise between state and private when it comes down to the general culture.

A leafy comprehensive, a Northern Ireland grammar, a public school, a small independent day school, an independent school for pupils with behavioural problems, a comprehensive in a deprived area near a grammar school, an international school, an independent with an unusual educational philosophy, a super-strict academy, a performing arts school and a pupil referral unit can't easily be grouped into a "state-school" and "independent school" ethos.

You can’t! My kids to extra curricular activities like climbing, scouts, netball, football but none of that can give them a private experience in a state school.

@Shakenandstirredup I don't think it is a legal requirement for secondaries to have closed sites. There's state school (in town) here that have split sites and the kids walk between them, and a state school (rural) where the school backs on to fields, and has open access to the site from the front drive.

@HappyAsASandboy I’m surprised, I just thought because of the climate these days schools in particular had to control who had access to the grounds. But maybe private schools don’t have to do that.

Private tutoring

@Shakenandstirredup No, the site is not "secure". There are open gates and public footpaths that lead on to/off the grounds.

They take a sensible approach of wearing lanyards (if not in uniform) and staff challenging people that they don't recognise or have a lanyard.

The older years are allowed to leave the site at break and lunchtime; I'm not certain, but I don't think they have to sign in or out.

The kids stay in school because they want to / because they don't question the expectation that they will. It is also rural, so there's not many places to go unless you've arranged someone to collect you!

THIS in spades 👏

I am sometimes genuinely mystified by what some parents think goes on in state schools. Mine have had loads of opportunities- DofE, trips to watch Shakespeare plays, school performances, trips abroad, extra curricular sports and music, extra revision sessions before and after school. And this is a very bog standard state school that was RI at the last Ofsted.

In terms of the ‘confidence’ private schools give you- DD just did her GCSEs and came out with a string of 6s and 7s. She was delighted and has skipped off to the local college to do A Levels, brimming with confidence, she feels like one of the ‘clever ones’. I have friends with kids at private who are a bag of nerves and stressed to hell, feeling like a failure for getting 8s.

In terms of the excellent ‘teaching’ - I am a state secondary teacher, I know several teachers who quit state for private because they wanted ‘an easy life’. Not because they are amazing teachers. In fact a good friend of mine who moved to a local private school to take up a HoD role told me she had never seen such lazy teaching- because they are so-called compliant/easy students the teachers just rock up and turn to the next page in the text book.

So I wouldn’t want to emulate a private education tbh. Give me happy, well rounded kids with a much broader understanding of the world and their local community any day.

I’d have thought it was quite common for secondary schools to have sites people
Can get into/out of quite easily? Every primary I’ve worked in has been like Fort Knox (though my friend works in one which has a public footpath running through it…) but are secondaries like this? Some private ones are split sites across a town…Eton and Marlborough college for example.

You can offer cultural enrichment activities but you will not be able to replicate the relationships and connections that are the real benefit of private school.