Do people expect ROI after paying private school fees?

Posts like this always sound so patronising.

Like finds like at all schools, even state, so if you are a cosy middle class family, your dcs friends are likely to be cosy middle class kids also.

Unusual.
2 girls were expelled very quickly for bullying my DD and none of it was physical.
2 boys from Ds's year were expelled last year for bad behaviour.
I am on the board of Governors for our local Comp and sit on the Exclusions commitee and we keep kids that would have been expelled instantly from my DC's Private school. 2 of my friends have had to withdraw their DC from another local well regarded Comp when bullying was not addressed and DS's BF transferred to his school after awful bullyimg in State.
I am not saying there is no bullying in Private schools but ours has a zero tolerance on it

This is often true however all my DCs music was learnt outside of school other than the odd half hour guitar lesson. The music as my DCs private school was OK, they did weekly group lessons but I thought this was part of curriculum? There definitely wasn't a big music department but the kids were encouraged to learn instruments.

The one thing I did find is that there were opportunities for them to perform more as it was a tiny school. This makes a big difference as it helped them get used to performing.

I'm absolutely not buying an advantage. I'm buying an environment that my ND kid can survive, never mind thrive in, the same as a confident, academic NT kid might thrive in a 1000+ comprehensive. I shouldn't have to and it's absolutely not fair that I have to go into huge debt to give my kid a safe and accessible education. But I will.
It's absolutely no different though to those buying an "advantage" of a good catchment area. Why one attracts such vitriol and not the other, I don't know.

Jesus. Seems my innocuous post in answer to the OPs question has been massively misinterpreted.

The question was do parents of privately educated children expect a ROI. My answer was no, the only thing I want is for them to leave school having not hated it 🤷🏽‍♀️ Nothing more, nothing less. Just a simple answer to a question.

I'm not sure how that can be interpreted as "93% of parents of state educated kids don't give a shit about their kids being happy in school" but yet somehow someone managed it.

The disparity of music provision between state and private is disgusting in my book. In state it's patchy, of varying quality, often relegated to the parents who can afford extra curricular lessons or are musicians themselves, limited in terms of instruments and quality of those instruments.

Reason in itself to choose a private school if you have a G&T child in music.

I mean not many state schools do professional choir for example. So you're left with the church.

No.

We are paying to help our SEN child's mental health and for school to be a positive experience for her.

A happy child with decent GCSE results is the ROI we are hoping for.

@CruCru "Once we were put into sets, the children I was taught with had the same sort of accents, background, music lessons. My friends were floppy haired girls who played a musical instrument."

My children too-in the subjects they were set in. What I liked was that in non set subjects, like RE, Art, PHSE among others, they mixed with lots of other sorts of kids outside their ivory tower.

Don't state school parents think about how to help their kids get to the best university that they can? Or is it just seen as the preserve of private school parents

ROI is a strange, tactical way to think of parents relationships with their children.

The school parents send their children to is part of a range of choices and decisions that make up the way children are raised. I believe everyone raises children with multiple outcomes in mind. Not just university and career choice. Yes, parents want children to become self sufficient and able to make a living. But they also want them to have good character, good mental health, good relationships, etc.

No. We pay for our children's education for many reasons, university is not one of them. They may well choose not to attend and by the time they get there university education may have altered. We are already at the stage where professions which traditionally required a full tine university are now available aa apprenticeships - my own being one of those.

Our children attend private school partly as its what we know and understand, both my husband and I were privately educated, and partly to remove ourselves from the issues which are reported to be within state schools.

More anecdotally, I went to a large comprehensive on the south coast. Someone upthread said that private school children only mix with other privileged children - this happened in my state secondary too.

Once we were put into sets, the children I was taught with had the same sort of accents, background, music lessons. My friends were floppy haired girls who played a musical instrument. I think I’ve learned more about the lives of others from reading Mumsnet than from going to a comprehensive.

Jeeez no that's not how it works. This more like the attitude of a selective grammar.

Absolutely not, I hate that attitude. The DC didn't ask to be sent to private school. Our reasons weren't to make sure they had super fancy jobs etc but to make sure they both got the education they needed (for various reasons).

DS1 18 is a full time musician at the moment, DS2 16 is doing a L2 apprenticeship. Both got good GCSE grades, DS1 6-9s, DS2 mostly 5s but some higher/some lower. They did how I expected them to do, DS2 maybe slightly better (he has additional needs).

DS1 has the academic ability to do most things but music is what he loves. I'd rather him do what he loves than a high flying career he does just for the money. I don't see it as a waste of the school fees.

Yes maybe - although one of the dcs had loads of fab holidays. Also if that were true, wouldn't that have been the case by year 6? My dc did much less well in the SATS than this particular child did.

@Withless "neither did that well at A level at the state school, so to me that shows the school didn't do enough to grow their potential."

Possibly. But also, one of the best indicators of academic success is parental wealth- so being able to afford private school may have been a contributing factor too.

Honestly? I have a friend who went through a phase of asking why we went private “as they can still get good qualifications at a state school”. It’s peculiar to quiz others on the reasons for the decisions they made - particularly when implying that those decisions were somehow “wrong”.

I will say that I would be annoyed if one of my children (whether state or privately educated) became an influencer because I can’t see that it’s going to be a thing they can sustain in the long term.

I agree with the poster upthread who said that there’s sometimes an assumption that private school parents are homogeneous. Looking at the latest ISI census, 4 in 10 pupils (6 in 10 in London) are from a minority ethnic background and 1 in 5 are identified as having SEND. Most ISI schools are small. People have their own reasons for choosing this and they won’t all be the same.

I don't think so - if the dcs have done as well as they are able - some dcs at non selective privates are not hugely academic. If they come out happy, having spent years being able to do their sport or drama or music or whatever to a high level then I'm sure the parents feel at least they've given their dcs as many opportunities as they can.

And ds went to a small state primary. Three of them left after year 6 to go privately. They've all done far better in their exams than their friends who went to our local state and are at better unis. I actually feel a bit sad for the couple of dcs who were always top of the class at primary and clearly very bright - neither did that well at A level at the state school, so to me that shows the school didn't do enough to grow their potential.

I’ve wondered this myself before. Essentially by sending them to private school you’re buying an advantage or attempting to so it might sting a bit when it doesn’t materialise if you’ve made sacrifices to do that.

I wanted my dcs to enjoy their school days to the full and to come out of school with a fantastic work ethic, fit and healthy and resilient, with a bunch of lovely friends.

The fact that they all got fantastic results and into RG unis was a bonus.

No, one son goes to private school and one to state. The one at private has meant sacrifices for all of us in a single parent family but for his mental and physical health - he got removed from a school where he was failing, bullied both emotinallu and physically and the school did nothing to discipline the perpetrators We were at the stage of school refusal.
Three weeks at private school - he started reading books, got up without nagging, joined a club, smiled, laughed - something he had not done for nearly year.
He is there to thrive and be happy - what he does in life is his choice as long as he earns enough to be happy

Of note other son is at the same state school and having a completely different experience and v happy -same applies there - happy and earning enough to be happy is my aim

@Werecat " yet you are sufficiently psychic to read in views of state school parents that aren’t present. Funny that."

I'm afraid I don't understand.

@CurlewKate yet you are sufficiently psychic to read in views of state school parents that aren’t present. Funny that.

@Meadowfinch "I got the feeling the poster meant she had hated every second of her own education and was doing all she could to avoid that for her child. Not that it was inevitable"

Fair enough. Not being gifted with psychic ability, I can only go on a poster's actual words.