Do people expect ROI after paying private school fees?

Not obvious at all.

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.

It's not a zero sum game. If you don't spend the money on private school, that money can be spent on something else.

So it is worthwhile thinking through what the value - that value doesn't have to be purely ££ - is gained from private school Vs other things you can do for your child now or later on.

So I think most parents are thinking about what they get for the money, they might not think about it per se as ROI, they might think of it more as "value for money" or just "value" but unless you're truly fabulously wealthy, you are thinking about these things.

I also agree with PP that you can't generalise here. There are absolutely private school parents who are thinking of it in £ terms - I know a few myself. A friend's son recently did badly in his GCSEs and was not allowed to go back to his private school's sixth form because his grades weren't good enough and she and her DH explicitly refer to feeling like they have wasted money.

But that doesn't mean all private school parents think of it purely in ££ terms either.

@Werecat "Oh get over that chip on your shoulder. The poster never said that at all. She gave her personal reasons"

For accuracy. The poster concerned gave no reasons for her choice to send her children to private school from day 1 except "The only thing we want is for them to leave their education and not think "I hated every minute of school" Obviously implying that is an inevitability otherwise.

@Carrotmccarrotface thank you. I won't lie and pretend that I'm not pleased my kids are away from kids with horrible anti -social behaviour and no interest in education.

There's SO much hypocrisy on MN about wanting kids to have "real life" experience as though the only way to achieve that is to go to school with the absolute financially worst off people or people whose families will threaten violence if their kid is disciplined. My kids go to school with people from all over the world, some of them from Ukraine and Albania and Syria. They're all on charity / scholarship programmes and my kids have seen what drive and ambition they have to get out of the shitty situation they've grown up in. No money involved. But apparently that's less real and valuable than going to school with the people we're supposed to pretend don't exist but all run a mile from to buy houses in "good" catchments.

There are dozens of threads on here with people explaining their reasons for using private and they are always outnumbered vastly by those who don't telling us why we do and how stupid we are because their child did great and got straight 9s at state. I'm in massive debt due to fees. It wasn't my plan. It's JUST doable and my circumstances make it necessary. That's all really. I totally understand that it's not doable at all for many and for those with unmet SEN needs in state, that is a tragedy.

I don’t expect a ROI. I sent mine private because they went to a state primary where the levels of disruption were off the scale. I felt secondary was an important stage of education, where they start to realise their interests etc and as it was the last possible stage of education, I wanted them to have a shot at being able to actually enjoy learning without the constant disruption experienced at primary.

In Y5 snd Y6 their daily classroom was affected by other kids who had awful parenting, behaviour issues, chairs thrown, crying teachers, classmate absconders, exposure to totally inappropriate language, all couple with the school mentality of focusing on trying to improve those at the lowest academic levels.

I jumped at the chance to go private for secondary and I have no regrets. I couldn’t care less about networking or prestige of uni.

This! This nails it exactly!

But there’s probably someone out there thinking this is bullshit and you really sent them there cause you want them to get all A*s and good ‘connections’, whatever that means…

😂

I must admit I do wonder what my exSIL expectations are.

Her son has two very good scholarships in to two private schools (one is a public school with sizable fees), I understand why but I do wonder if he being dropped in to a different world. They don't have the money for any of the extras like skiing trips or any trips outside of his scholarships, or extra classes he might want to do, like most teens he's probably going to want the latest phone, trainers etc...difference being his parents will have to make sacrifices for these things and he will be with other children whose parents can easily afford those things. I went around to her house one January and the house was freezing but they couldn't afford to turn on the heating.
In comparison, my daughter, her niece has a completely different life at a good state 6th form, she has a loan horse, she's having driving lessons, school is a 5 minute walk away, she has a job and she comes home to a house I can afford to heat. This summer her dad (exH) and I paid for her to go on a horse riding holiday she really wanted to go on and I took her on a family holiday. I feel like we have given her a different lifestyle and different opportunities.

Oh get over that chip on your shoulder. The poster never said that at all. She gave her personal reasons. The other 93% presumably either think the school they have achieved that already, or are financially trapped such that they can’t get their kid out. If the latter, it sucks for them but sniping at people who make different decisions won’t help the trapped kids at all.

Everyone expects an ROI, that's the whole point of having kids. 🤣

Depends where you set the bar. A genetic return is enough for me. As long as they are happy. Part of that is supplying food, clothes, space, and a decent education.

It really doesn't matter in the end! Money comes & goes, energy too.

I think of influencers as people who contribute nothing at all to society, do nothing useful. They add nothing, create only fashion victims. Their job is to pressure people, subtly and not-so-sublty. No-one needs more pressure

A child isn't a racehorse, which increases value with an expensive trainer 😀

My DS goes to a small independent. He went for a scholarship at my suggestion and won it, after being lonely, miserable and bullied at the local primary, where he was excluded from everything because he didn't like football.

Now he's in a school where he doesn't get called names for liking maths and physics and chess, or reading a book at lunchtime. He is happy and confident. He has friends and is no longer depressed and miserable.

That's my ROI.

His gcse results are good but less important than knowing he is safe, happy and flourishing.

Some of the parents of the children I was at school with, definitely did. Some were wanting more sport or extra curricular opportunities. Some were very invested in their children's happiness, some weren't.

Some of the private school parents I know now definitely are wanting to buy success; some of the parents I meet at my children's grammar chose it because their Oxbridge numbers are excellent, others because the school provides an outstanding and rich education for 'free'.

Parents are a diverse group of people...! These threads always assume "private school parents" are a homogenous group of automatons who are all the same. It's ludicrous.

But I think wholly depends on the type of influencer you are.

Anyway I probably should have asked this on another thread as don’t want to derail op.

Do you ask the same question if someone moves house and pays out a ton of stamp duty to get into the catchment of an excellent comp?
I suspect that any parent who invests in education, be it time or money, expects that investment to be “worthwhile”. Whatever that means. For most parents it will be to enhance the child’s abilities across the board, health, including mental health, confidence, memories etc - academics would be a small percentage of that. Most of us engaged parents are trying to raise well rounded human beings who will contribute positively to society because their foundations are right.

@puzzlesandactivediscussions because it's mostly vapid shite that is basically just monetising your own life, kids, latest trend. It's hugely dependant on an incredibly fickle audience and offers no stability. The vast majority will not earn enough for security and it puts enormous pressure on them to always be "on". It also encourages appalling consumerism and the concept that if you can look like this or buy that you will be happy. I think it sends a terrible and unrealistic message to very impressionable teens.

Out of interest why are people so down on someone becoming an influencer? A very close friend of mine is one and she earns really well, works her own hours and is her own boss.

Why put words in people's mouths? @Strokethefurrywall hadn't remotely said that. Maybe she's reflecting on her own experience, maybe the state schools near her are awful, maybe, like mine, her children were bullied to fuck and developed EBSA in their state school. My eldest is likely to leave his small, not really academic private with not much in the way of GCSEs but he won't be a gibbering wreck wanting to kill himself. I am not remotely suggesting that that is the experience for all or even many but it is for some and I and @Strokethefurrywall are in a position to alleviate that. I know parents in the same situation as me who are not and it's awful and desperate for them. I don't think they care less. I hate the way these threads always make massive assumptions about what private school parents think and often ignore what we actually say.

Return on Investment!

Wherever they go to school, I’d be disappointed if my kids dropped out of a good university course to become an influencer as that industry is so fickle… best get the qualification, be an influencer if they want, but have something to fall back on when fashions change/they’re out of favour. My eldest is at private school for SEN reasons and I’ll just be happy if she feels happy at school and eventually finds a job that makes her happy. I would worry about her being an influencer though, as it’s tied up so much with how ‘popular’ you are and it must be pretty devastating for your mental health when one day no-one is interested and has moved on to the new thing.

No. My ROI is happy and rounded children. That will do me as that what I think sets you up for adult life.

I’d rather they weren’t influencers 😂. They are doing very well academically (not quite there yet but I’m guessing they’ll perform in exams) but they’ll make their choices like the rest of us when they become adults.

We sent out two children to private school.

Both of us were not from money but my ExH made a lot of money in business and so he (we) could afford the school fees without really noticing.

We didn't go without to pay them.

We don't care about return on investment.

Lucky really because one went into music (no money in music). The other is still finishing her degree but is seriously disabled and getting a job might be tricky.

The schools they went to had a lot of generational wealth/business owners etc who didn't really notice the school fees.

Few will admit that, but parents will want ROI in terms of academic achievement, movement in the ‘right’ social circles or even that much-vaunted private school ‘confidence’ (charm, arrogance…) to overcome the fact they might be a bit thick, by smoothing their way to success.
There are an awful lot of Tim-nice-but-dim banker/landowner/trust fund types about too.

@Strokethefurrywall "The only thing we want is for them to leave their education and not think "I hated every minute of school"."

And the other 93% of the population don't care whether their kids hate school or not? Right.

Interesting to see quite a few people saying they would send their bright child to private school, but save their money if their child was average or below-average.

My own inclination would be the opposite - that the child who might struggle would benefit more from smaller classes, etc.

My husband went to an independent school. He feels that he benefitted more from this because he was quite average at a lot of subjects. It turned out that he was very good in one area, but he feels that he would not have had the opportunity to take himself further in that field, as the grades he would have achieved in other subjects at GCSE without the extra support would have been too low to get into the best universities for his course.

I was state-educated, and was academically a good all-rounder. He says that private education would have been money wasted on me, as I was always going to be a straight As student.

That’s obviously an over-simplification, as there is a lot that private education offer in terms of enrichment activities that the state sector just does not have the funding or staffing numbers to offer.

I also think he is wrong that I would have thrived wherever I went. I probably would have still got all As, but the effects of your school experience cannot be simply summed up by the grades you achieve. I don’t ascribe to the view that you often hear that clever children do well anywhere. I was fat, shy, bad at PE, interested in classical music, and an ethnic minority. I would have been eaten alive if I had gone to my brother’s school during the 1980s. Fortunately, there were other options and I was viewed as deeply uncool, but mainly left alone at my school. However, that’s not a state v independent sector issue. I think I would have also had a miserable time if I had gone to the well-known public school that my cousin went to.

Ultimately, it’s all about the right school for the right child, within the constraints of family finances.

Both our kids have been in private since kindergarten and will be in private until the end of their schooling. Neither husband nor I have any expectations of our kids. The only thing we want is for them to leave their education and not think "I hated every minute of school".