To choose the local state comp over the high achieving private boys school?

extra curricular may be excellent at state school though. My DD goes to state school and gets:
-trampolining club (free)
-LAMDA drama (free)
-debate club (free)
-writing club (free)
-sax lessons (paid for by me)

there's also football, netball, gymnastics, rugby STEAM, art, skateboarding, dance, SEN homework support, languages etc

Looking at the first cons list, you already know the answer OP.

my daughter hated sport in primary but loves it at secondary (state) she loves netball and trampolining now.

I went to a selective state around a 45 min coach journey away which had a fairly large catchment area. The journey didn’t massively bother me but the distance and catchment meant I had friends who all lived quite far from me. My parents spent a lot of my school days driving me around to friends houses / parties etc. Not the most important thing I know but just something to consider

Yes but 20% of the kids at this school get top grades - that is a large percentage (above the National average) and I’d be willing to put good money on the OP‘s son who is (a) bright, (b) affluent, with ability to afford private tuition if need be, and (c) has engaged supportive parents making it into that top 20%. Indeed, it would be odd if he didn’t.

Possible, of course, if he went totally off the rails, but that could happen at any school.

I went to a private school on an assisted place. Whilst the atmosphere was calm and rather enjoyably quaint, the teaching was nothing to write home about, and in some cases, abysmal. Children were expected to have private tuition if they were falling behind... even when it's the fault of the shoddy teaching.

I was behind in French bc I'd transferred from a different school and the teacher was horrible to me. Didn't help me at all, just picked on me in class and told me to concentrate.

I remember Spanish being offered for the first time at the school and the teacher could barely speak it- apparently she was doing gcse Spanish at the same as teaching it... (she got away with it because she taught French and German at the school).

“All the kids have given up sports”

Gosh if I said similar about “all the private school children” I would be jumped on 🙄🙄. What utter nonsense. Our state school
children have all played sport and not had boyfriends. They socialise with state and private pupils and I can assure you the teens from the two sectors are utterly interchangeable.

The comp is not selective so her child (assuming he got a place at the selective private) is likely to be within that top 20%, and should therefore come out with exactly the same grades as if he’d gone to the independent.

That's a big assumption. You surely don't think grades are purely based on a student's intelligence and have nothing to do with the quality of teaching, class sizes, the speed/level a class is taught at based on the ability of the other students in the class etc? Lots of state schools can't even reliably recruit enough qualified teachers in some subjects at the moment. Classes end up just being supervised by unqualified cover teachers. Even GCSE classes sometimes.

If money isn’t a concern then private for sure. Teenagers change fast and can be influenced by peers easily - having friends who have taught at local comprehensive high schools - none of them want to send their kids there if they had a choice. Just the lack of discipline and disruption one or two kids have in the class even if your kid is one that wants to learn. It’s a no brainer if money is not a concern

Same for my DD who attends a local comp. She loves it and is in no way teased for playing instruments or liking maths and science.

She goes to an after school club every day of the week.

She has local friends, some of whom she walks to school with. And how lovely that she can walk to school too!

Definitely private but that’s based on my personal experience with a crappy local state school plus seeing the opportunities / connections my kids have had having gone through private.

Is it though?

If the private is selective at 11 then 90% could even be a low figure.

The comp is not selective so her child (assuming he got a place at the selective private) is likely to be within that top 20%, and should therefore come out with exactly the same grades as if he’d gone to the independent.

Secondly two warnings:

Fees have gone up ridiculously since just after Covid I'm talking 8% rises year on year.

Calculate VAT. It will happen.

Finally project the 8% fee rises into the future plus the VAT.

Oh finally finally - instrument lessons (c£300 per term per instrument) and finally finally the trips and the extra curricular outside of school. All the kids will do netball, cricket, hockey, athletics outside of school as well as in school.

We went state. I felt my child would fit in better, and be happier. So far no regrets, private would have been a stress. In the back of my mind my dad died when I was 13, and I wanted finances to be secure above anything else.

I would say Private. Hear me out, we have an outstanding comp near us but all the kids have given up sport (in the main). It's cooler to have extensions than play netball, it's cooler to have a boyfriend than focus on an instrument, having done outstanding state primary, considered the outstanding comp, we went private, the differences in kids and their focus from state to private is so very different.

The private school sounds like a lot more work for your DS and you as a whole family! Whereas the state option sounds good and easy. I would definitely at least try the state option first, move him in year 9 if he doesn’t thrive. Unis and the Government appear anti private school so why work harder and put yourselves through that? It’s better and cheaper to just get tutors if you need to.

I don't know what I would do but you list more pros than cons for the state and more cons than pros for the private, so on the basis of quantity of pros/cons you have given yourself the answer. If some weigh more than others is another matter and also is you husband's list the same?

I cal bullshit on the 'we only recruit state school'. Aside from being discrimination, that your HR department would never let you get away with, I do grad recruitment and is largely institution blind these days.

If he's bright I'd choose state, as he'll do well there and be in that top 20%. As it's not selective they'll have all abilities entering GCSE, so their results can't be compared with a selective private school.

If he has additional needs I'd choose private as they will cater for him better.

My private school regret is that DD can’t now have a contextual university offer. She’s at a state college but you need to have gone to a state secondary as well. I think she’s probably the only student in her year at her college that won’t get a contextual offer.

This is a really interesting post - do you mean like buying into privilege in a sense?

This sounds like a great state school, with an outstanding ofsted.
Where does your DS want to go?
I went to a good state school and got really good GCSEs (all As A*s) as did my friendship group and have a PhD now; a state educated family member is at Oxford uni now. It depends on your DS’s character - do you think he needs a particular environment in order to meet his potential? How do you think he will navigate socially in a single sex setting? Does he have close female friends and family members?
Having gone mixed sex, I always appreciated the boys being around - I was bullied and they were mich kinder to me than girls. Also I learnt loads about talking to and navigating the opposite sex which some private and grammar educated friends say they really missed.
In my job now I am really pleased that I mixed growing up with individuals from lots of different backgrounds; different financial situations, I think it really helped me understand a lot about our community. And in fact a number of the most interesting and clever kids at my school I don’t think would have had the finances to go private.
I want this for my kids and if we have an outstanding state school near us then I will definitely be sending my kids there.

Neither sound like a bad choice, OP - a nice problem to have :) I’d just go and look around both, make the journey from both at the times he’d be travelling, to help make an informed decision. How much homework do the private school give - will he be pressured for time after bussing home? Some people don’t find that an important factor, others do. Do you really have an appetite to move home? Only you and your family can answer these questions. Sounds like he’ll do well wherever he ends up.

I'd be interested to know where you got the information you listed about what each of the schools is like. Hearsay? School website? Open Day? Friends with dc currently at the schools?

Obviously schools can't fake Ofsted reports or exam results, but I would take what they say about behaviour with a pinch of salt. No school will say 'We are lax on behaviour' or 'behaviour is poor at this school'. The state school might have a strict behaviour policy, but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't lots of bad behaviour.

As a teacher, and with bitter experience of my choice of schools for my own dc, I'd rather send my child to a school that didn't actually need draconian discipline methods because there was just a culture of good behaviour. In reality, this is to do with the intake, not the rules. I now teach at a school where behaviour is great.