AIBU to think Private School isn’t worth the expense?

@mugboat wow - I'm not even in a deprived area. In fact it's considered a desirable area and primary school. But most classes contain at least a few children who disrupt the entire class. Where I live there's not enough support for SEND children and they're mainly in mainstream schools. Plus behaviour seems to be getting worse. Great to hear that's not the case across the whole country and it's an isolated thing. Sadly I'm in that isolated area.

it might be true in one school, but at primary, this is practically unheard of. I used to teach primary and spent a whole year as a supply teacher in some of the most deprived areas in the country. Not once did I have to evacuate the classroom.
Behaviour in most primary state schools is good.

People don't like to admit this but it's true. I've just moved DS. At his old state school his class was evacuated multiple times a day due to outbursts from kids and when he wasn't being evacuated he was accompanying kids to the chill-out room and being used to manage poor behaviour. Meantime I was paying for a tutor to actually teach him.

DD is still at the same state school and is thankfully having a better experience, or at least, is able to cope better with it. But she'll be moved to private for secondary.

Our local secondary school is rife with bullying, fighting and intimidating behaviour. The kids hang about in the local park setting bins on fire.

Obviously not all state schools are like this and this is why people pay £££ to move into the catchment of the best ones.

@mugboat I do think its a good analogy because what @CoughedBulldozerNumber is trying to say is that in all walks of life we have choices - sometimes state sponsored - and yet we choose to go for a more expensive option as we perceive it to be valuable to us. She is not disparaging the default option, but simply pointing out that as we do with bread, healthcare and other things - we can choose to pay and get something we perceive is important to us. I don't see why you are taking it so personally.

it's an appalling analogy and tantamount to a strawman argument.
I wasn't replying to you initially, I was actually replying to someone saying it was a brilliant analogy. Not sure why you're defending it so much.

What struck me in that post was how utterly deluded it was.

It's an analogy. It's not perfect. It was there to illustrate how the state might make a provision to meet a basic human right for everyone and yet it still to be reasonable for people who can afford it and who value something above and beyond state provision to choose to opt out and buy elsewhere. You are arguing with the practicalities of real implementation of my fantasy analogy (for fucks sake it would be perfectly possible to dole out bread by using a voucher system for £X tokens to be used for bread in any major supermarket but that's completely beside the point and irrelevant because it's not about bread. Have you not been taught about analogies and metaphores?)

I know that "perfectly satisfactory" isn't a glowing endorsement but it's the best that can be said of what goes on in many even "outstanding" schools a lot of the time. It doesn't mean bad or poor quality, it means that it's the best that can reasonably be achieved within a reasonable budget. Nothing wrong with that. I think people taking offense at my analogy are being a bit hypersensitive. There's no criticism towards being satisfied with the option that is the standard default for the vast majority of the population. I haven't called anything crap.

and this is what implies everyone is getting the same loaf, as your whole post harks to communism (rather than socialism)...

If we decided as part of socialist principles that everyone would get a dole of bread paid for by taxes, the bread doled out would be the cheaper supermarket style

"perfectly satisfactory" is hardly a glowing review is it?

No it doesn't. I explicitly said that supermarket quality bread is perfectly satisfactory for most people's requirements. And if you think supermarket bread is all the same you haven't been in a supermarket recently. There's a huge variety of choice generally all at a very similar price-point to eachother.

so children in state primary schools are dressed in rags and badly behaved hey? They don't want to learn and lack in confidence?

Well done poster for revealing some what private parents think of state school parents and our children.

it's a bit of a crap analogy as it is implying the state bread is crap and each loaf is identical... which in turn implies that the state schools are crap and identical... when in fact there are many different types of state school.

And some people would be happier at School A over School B.
And whether A or B are state or private isn't really relevant.

I'd suggest if you are paying for a school, then I'd want it to be one where my child was happy, or at least as happy as they could be.

Honestly for me, its behaviour. The polite, well behaved children in our prep is markedly different to state. All of the children are dressed neatly in correct uniform. The atmosphere is calm. Children want to learn and are more confident, speak nicely.

It's the same reason we stretched ourselves to buy a nice house in a nice village. Essentially you are buying a better lifestyle.

Thing is you have to compare school to school and personal finances. There just isn’t going to be a universal rule here. I have no doubt that many of the private schools near me offer a significantly better educational experience than our local comp- better results, nicer facilities, calmer environment, more music, more sport etc etc.

What I haven’t determined yet is if we can afford that better education and even if we can how we weigh that up against other lifestyle factors and the opportunity cost. Is it worth it if you have to pay from income (and have financial pressure)? is it worth it if you can’t do work on the house or have good holidays? Is it worth it over earlier retirement? Is it worth it over giving a significant house deposit instead? It’s all of those factors which make the decision tough for me- if I had unlimited money I’d go private without a moments hesitation.

It’s not what I would choose (all my kids go to the really good state schools!) but it’s not my dc…

The dad went to a very famous public school so I do wonder if an exception will be made for the younger (only DS) to go there.

Thanks for sharing. I studied at Bristol. It been many years since I have lived. I have not heard of Clifton College but I did meet many from Bristol Grammar.

That sounds quite unfair.

We have friends (both doctors) who send their 2 kids to a 3-18 private school nearby and they have said that if they can get them into the outstanding state secondary for year 7 they will move them as they can’t justify the cost.

We have some other friends who send their eldest (of 3) to the same school, partially funded by themselves and partially by grandparents. They can’t afford it for their other two kids and send them to a state primary - especially with the older one having VAT on fees soon. They would easily get their eldest into the same outstanding state secondary but would never consider moving her. The younger two will inevitably end up going there.. but it shows how much the “worth it” is individual to the family and even each DC.

For reference, the state school has a progress score of 1.3 and well over 80% 5+ in maths and English so it really is a very good school.

I'm not sure all private pupils agree.

So what? Some people just don’t enjoy school and would be unhappy whether they went to a state school or a private school.

I'm not sure all private pupils agree

Is it?!

What a brilliant analogy!

This

Absolutely this.

@goodluckbinbin you're stance is really terribly outdated and not remotely informed as to why the vast majority of private parents use these schools. There's been dozens of threads on this over the last few months. Why don't you go and read a few. You'll find lots of reasons why people use private and none of them are about making connections. I know you can say "well obviously they'd say that" but that's up to you. You can listen to real people give their real reasons or you can continue to just assert an outdated and inaccurate stereotype.