To feel so fed up that the only way to get a good education seems to be privately?

Don’t be disheartened OP. I am state through and through. I am doing just as well if not better than my privately-educated friends. I am the only one that went to Oxbridge for example. I earn the same if not more than some of them. I am certainly not as entitled or insensitive as they can be, and because I know state education is fine I’m not worried about how I’ll pay my kids’ school fees as they are now.

@Barbadossunset I said it was anecdotal, I have no idea if it is true but the police round here do nothing about a lot of crimes, I’m sure they have very little time to investigate gossip about where local teens buy weed etc.

My children are adults now and all did perfectly well in state.

Yes of course. Every kid I've taught for the last twenty years is now a messed up adult. For sure. 🙄

I grew up on a council estate and am from a family where no-one had ever even completed their GCSEs. I used to be hugely against private.
I taught state for 10 years including being a sendco and a deputy. Recently quit and am pursuing every avenue possible to get my kids into a private school.
State schools are in crisis. Staff are on their knees. I think children are being failed to a scale that won't be clear for another generation and I worry about my children being collateral.

Because eating disorders and drugs never happen in state schools do they?
Honestly your prejudice is amazing.

I didn't ask which uni, I asked how many kids as a % of the number who go to indy was this 'representative sample"

FYI I went to all state through to uni and got introduced to speed, weed + cocaine at the state secondary school. I also became anorexic at 14 yrs old whilst at state school. In my friendship group there was competitive under eating + drug taking to go alongside that. However that was my own personal experience and I don't tar every state school with that.

1. Plenty of people can afford to privately educate their children but opt for state schools instead.
2. Some state schools are obviously better than others. My guess is those who have the option of state or private only choose state because they have access to good state schools in relatively affluent areas. I struggle to believe that any parent would choose to send their child to a school that requires improvement or is in a catchment area with lots of knife wielding gangs. My parents had no choice and sent me to an average state school in a deprived area. It was a girls school and, save for me and my best friend, every girl in our class was either pregnant, taking or dealing drugs or had a criminal record by 16. I’m now a City lawyer at one of the best law firms in the world earning a 6 figure salary.
3. Teach your child to read and to love books and they will do very well at school, whether they are privately educated or not.

I'm not sure my Oxbridge DC would agree!

Cambridge + one other Russell group. The stories they come home with about the drugs/eating disorders/mental health are really sad. Private school messes you up.

Ditto. In fact, my state-educated child has a group of lovely, kind, fun friends. Her privately educated cousin has had awful bullying and bitchiness at both her private prep (primary) and now, horrifically, also at her private senior school, and the safeguarding/ pastoral care is very poor - the school wants to protect its income at all costs.

My child would have been eaten alive at private senior.

Don't judge based on tatty classrooms.

30 in a class is standard in my experience - I dont think any of my primary or secondary education ever meant a class of less than about 28-30 (I was at school 1980-1992).

I think to assume a private education is better is foolish and naive. Yes it "can" be better and "can" lead to "better" things - but none of that is a given. Ive heard appalling anecdotes from friends about their childrens private school education - of a sort that wouldnt happen in a state school.

Plus there is a stigma attached from having been to private school. Personally Id rather my kids did well because they did well - not because Ive spent a fortune and they've been given an unfair advantage.

My ds is at an independent.

He was utterly miserable at his state primary. He was bullied because he liked maths and didn't like football. By 10 he was angry, lonely, miserable, disengaged. The state school he was allocated was in special measures. Even Ofsted said it wasn't safe.

Ds won a scholarship at a small, unfashionable, rural independent. It isn't smart, the facilities aren't any different than a state senior school, except that they have an outdoor 1980s pool.

The difference is the lack of disruption. lack of bullying. smaller class sizes - 20 per class. Teachers who lead the same classes every day. Calm consistency. No smoking, no phones. No drugs. No knives

I was a 56yo single mum when we started, the (half) fees took every penny but within six months ds was a different child, happy, engaged, with friends. He's in the lower 6th now. I'm still struggling with the fees but we're nearly there. I'm tired. I haven't had nights out or takeaways or anything other than necessities since he joined but I was determined ds would have as good an education as I had (1980s state grammar).

I hate people saying that private school parents are all rich. It isn't true.

Anecdotally, as another poster has said, if teens round here want drugs then the kids at the nearest private school are the likely suppliers. Yes, it gets good results, but it is a selective school so of course it should.

@SlipperyLizard if it is known that private school children are supplying drugs to the state school, then why isn’t something being done about it?

How many is a large proportion? 560 000 kids go to indy schools, what % was the cohort you are talking about? Are we taking about a handful of kids because sorry that's just not representative any more than me saying knife crime is more prevalent in state schools.

So are private better or not? There is SO much double thinking on these threads and so much bashing of children who attend private schools. On the one hand, people are desperate to say that state is just as good, they went to Oxbridge from state etc but in the same breath they'll say private kids have had an unfair advantage and wouldn't have done as well in state. Which is it?

@RhaenysRocks I agree. Not only do posters say state schools are just as good, plenty say they’re better than private schools.
That’s great - but in that case why the desire from some posters to abolish private schools?

Class sizes of 30 are fairly standard in most state schools and not really a problem.

Teachers in state schools who do not have QTS are paid on the unqualified teacher scale. They exist. Mostly foreign trained who are in the process of getting QTS through the assessment route.

Both of my children come from bogstandard comps, where a lot of kids smoke weed.

They both went to universities where a large proportion of their cohort went to private schools. They were amazed at just how many of these kids were already addicted to ketamine and cocaine. In some private schools they start in year 8.

Their parents appear to have no idea.

Most areas don't have grammars

I've taught for nigh on 20 years. Only 1 school had lockers. It's not usual

I've taught classes of 34. Secondary

Same here.
Buildings are not what matters. Parental input is the most important at primary level.

I'd base it on more than the infrastructure. My DD is at a state primary which is falling down (old Victorian school) but she's getting a great education. DS goes to a private school now as he gets better support for his dyslexia and was in an incredibly disruptive class. Weirdly both of my children who were at the same state primary have had very different experiences which goes to show it really does depend on the child.

Wow this sounds absolutely mental. We have none of that here. Literally choice of 2 primaries, one catholic (so can’t use that as that’s not our religion) and one non catholic a small primary which is 92% children with English as a foreign language which isn’t really ideal either

So are private better or not? There is SO much double thinking on these threads and so much bashing of children who attend private schools. On the one hand, people are desperate to say that state is just as good, they went to Oxbridge from state etc but in the same breath they'll say private kids have had an unfair advantage and wouldn't have done as well in state. Which is it?
All these threads do is run for pages and pages of anecdata stated as though it proves anything at all. The simple truth is that some schools are better than others in terms of facilities, leadership, teaching and demographic / behaviour. You find what fits your child within your means and God help you if you need SEN catered for and can't navigate the system to gain appropriate support.

We have such a range of schools in our area. I think it does depend on the area, school and intake. In our area, we have some of the top grammars in the country, with some absurd number of children vying for a place, a very good Catholic girls' school and a less good Catholic boys' school, an excellent sixth form college, an "up-and-coming" academy run on pseudo-military lines, a bog-standard comprehensive and a (by all accounts) awful comprehensive which now has a new head and is having additional resources poured into it.

There is also one of the top private schools in the county, an "alternative" private school for children with whom mainstream education doesn't agree, an SEN private school and very good girls' school. However, the girls' school has the reputation of being somewhat pressured and the top school has an incident recently which many feel has called into question the quality of its pastoral care and the stress that the children there are under.

It is possible for a child living in our street to end up in any of these schools depending on ability, need, parental preference, income, gender and religious affiliation, amongst other things. I realise that it may be unusual outside of densely populated urban areas to have such a range of schools.

It's very difficult to say that any children in our area are "missing out" purely from not going private due to the range of private and state schools. Certainly the grammar schools have great facilities (swimming pools, sports courts etc) and parents there would probably think they were getting a "private" standard of education for free. Meanwhile the two comprehensives have quite limited facilities in comparison and both have been implicated in the crumbling concrete scandal. The SEN school obviously caters for children with particular needs and the "alternative" private has quite a limited range of resources compared to the other schools. And there are quite of lot of parents who are relieved that their children aren't in the pressurised atmosphere of the local privates and they don't have that financial pressure.

It's very difficult to work out who is missing out on what! I'm glad that we still have a few years until we have to consider secondary options for DC1 because I must admit I'm flummoxed by it all.

Can’t be uk surely