To think when you’ve experienced a good private school…

YANBU to want your kids to have what you had, but in all honesty, we've done both and had to move DD back into state as private was so bad. We're incredibly lucky with the state schools in our area and DD is at one with almost all the things people are listing for privates.
Just because it's private doesn't mean it's better staffed or resourced. All but the very old private schools are really struggling financially and it's not the experience you had. Many are understaffed, under resourced, underpaid and undertrained. Those that can't afford to be super selective are getting filled with Sen kids they're not trained or staffed to deal with. It's not private Vs state, it's very much school Vs school and I'm sorry your local state option isn't great.

DH and I were both privately educated. We couldn’t really afford to do this for ours, and ideologically I wanted my children to have a broader experience of society.

How naive that was.

State school, and really the behaviour and culture of those environments, ruined my DDs mental health to the point she tried to take her own life on multiple occasions.

I wish we’d found a way to send her private.

DS is in an outstanding special school, so he’s safe from all that.

I thought it was perhaps just our local area that has horrific state schools but was horrified talking to others recently who said the school in Adolescence is quite average.

@Panicmode1Thank you :)

Hi,
It's fine to feel how you feel and to give yourself time to process those feelings.
I'm another voice in the 'it will be ok' camp. My kids' school is absolutely rubbish on paper - has been through 6 or 7 headteachers in a similar number of years, put into requires improvement and taken over by another trust, unfavourable articles in the paper, friends lying on applications to other local schools etc.
And there have definitely been things that have been a bit rubbish - notably difficulty with recruitment and retention which mean a real lack of STEM teaching for a while; I think the SEN provision has been pretty poor for some of those years too.
But... the teachers are mostly great - thoughtful, committed, kind, knowledgeable. And my kids have nice friends who live in the same town as them. Eldest got 9s in all her GCSEs (she did fewer than she would have done at a private school, but she still got into Cambridge). Youngest is on course to achieve similar. School supported her to take an extra GCSE in Y10. They've played sport, been on trips, acted in plays. It's been fine. And we've been part of our local community in a way that I don't think is as easy to do if you're at private school. (I went to a (good) state comp, but DH is privately educated and felt he missed out on as much as he benefited from.)

It's the same if you or your child has been to a good state school. It's one hell of a shock to experience the "crap comp". My OH went to a good state comp but his family moved for work and he ended up allocated to the local sink school. He was appalled by everything, only managed one full day, and in subsequent days just walked out and came home in disgust mid day, then finally just getting off the school bus, couldn't face going in, and getting back on the next bus home. His parents despaired, but he just refused to go. It was several months before the LA found a place at the "good" comp more local to him, and then he was back to regular attendance, making up lost time, etc.

It's a single sex boys (super selective) grammar in a town in West Kent which is highly sought after for schools (we moved from close to where @Tiswais! I really didn't like the primary options and we never settled in the area).

Some State schools are excellent Op but sadly not all are
My DC are at Private and I am a Governor at the State school they would have gone to if we hadn't been able to afford the alternative. It makes me sad to see the bright motivated kids achieving well below what they are capable of while avoiding the issues caused by other students
I helped with some Mock interviews for Y11 and while a lot of them were great I couldn't help thinking what they could achieve at my sons school half a mile away.
Having said that THE most important thing is parental engagement and encouragement so as long as they have you OP your kids will be ok.

My sons are 18 and 16 so coming to the end of their secondary education. They’ve had an excellent experience and I’ve been very happy with their state schools.

I distinctly remember worrying about how they’d survive in a secondary school when they were reception aged. However, now that they are strapping teenagers I’m not sure what I was worrying about. Their state school has been fantastic but it doesn’t feature in any top 10 or good school guide.

Your feelings are valid, but it really depends on the state school.

My DD went to a lovely one. I went to private and international fee-paying schools for the majority of my education.

The teaching at her school has been amazing, the facilities are modern and the class sizes aren't too bad. They have an equestrian society, dance studio, lots of international travel opportunities, an art gallery...

Once you experience a good state school (one of the top state grammars), we wonder why people pay £40k a year :)

Unless the schools in your neighbourhood are terrible, it’ll be ok, OP. Can you move somewhere with great state schools?

I’m in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands and the schools are generally good. Primary particularly. My older DC are fortunate enough to have got into the state grammars. I’m privately school educated. It has given me a lifetime of an inferiority complex!!

I wish I could give them nicer holidays, similar to my childhood, but private school is not something I have pined for.

If I was rolling in it, absolutely, but they’re doing well regardless.

I think my DH for a while felt sad and disappointed we wouldn't be able to privately educate our kids, but I think less because they were better schools and more about him having a degree of status anxiety that he has since got over! He was privately educated the whole way through, I went to state schools (secondary was selective though(

I humoured him and we looked at one private secondary for our eldest and was a little scared he'd declare it so much better than the others that we'd have to do whatever it took to send them there (which would basically have been living off baked beans with 0 luxuries or holidays for 7 years). But in the end he said that although the facilities were great it didn't seem that much better to him than the state schools we'd seen. Also we could neither remotely afford it, but aldo way above the threshold for subsidy (as indeed we should have been)

What about trying to get a scholarship or bursary? We wouldn't have been able to afford private education but my son managed to get an academic scholarship which reduced the fees by 35%. If your child isn't academic but is sporty, some private schools do sports scholarships or music scholarships. It's definitely worth thinking about.

Are you in an area where there are Grammar schools. If so, consider whether your child could take the entry test for Grammar. I bought a load of past papers and coached my child and he also passed the Kent Test for Grammar entry.

I went to a private school and never even considered it for my children. They attend a fantastic state primary where they have had every opportunity, lovely teachers and local friends. Educational achievement is mostly predicted by parental input and engagement, not which school you go to.

@Panicmode1 you could live in the same area as me then with the grammars.

Private education is a luxury. Always has been. You do have choice but your choosing not to move and stay near family. That's the choices that come with parenting

Interestingly I'm in the midlands as well. Beautiful area, lots of tourists coming for wellness breaks and walking holidays but schools have had little to no improvements for years. Lots of poverty here though it doesn't necessarily look like it.

I know of a private school (I won't name) that behind the scenes is completely toxic management-wise and becoming even more so with redundancies etc. Good teachers wanting to leave private environment for better work life and even leaving the profession entirely.

How happy are the staff? That's what I'd be trying to get the bottom of

@Panicmode1Could I ask what school this is? Sounds fabulous

I totally get where you’re coming from @B100000 , I felt exactly the same when my DCs were heading for our local state secondary.

All I can say it that I have a completely different perspective on what I was worried about now that we are many years in to the state secondary experience. Whilst there is no doubt that they do not get access to some of the facilities and experiences that paying for a private education would have allowed, we have been incredibly fortunate to have an excellent state secondary school near us and I am very, very glad that they have been there instead.

They have been involved in way more extra curricular stuff than I had anticipated and the general quality of teaching has been superb, certainly a lot better in many instances than some of the teaching at the private school I went to (despite it being highly regarded - reputation and very bright kids can hide sub-par provision in all sorts of ways). Behaviour is nothing like the kind of state-school horror stories that are often bandied around.

I know we’ve been really lucky and not all schools are like this, but I guess what I’m saying is that your fears may not reflect the reality of being at a state school. I realised that a lot of my fears were about what I imagined the experience would be and what I thought would be important, as I only had my own private experience to go by. The handful of things that my DC have missed out on are vastly outweighed by the benefits of the educational experience they’ve had, so it’s not inevitable that going to a state school is the lesser option.

Surrey/London borders so you have the grammar system of the Sutton Grammars and Tiffin, 2 single sex schools that used to be Epsom Grammars and a couple of other really good schools.
So Fulham and Chelsea both run football academies (Chelsea is women’s given how good the team is)

quite a few still have working PTA associations (all the grammars plus the single sex schools do) which helps with fundraising

DD went through Grammar and will join the all boys school in mixed sixth form in September.

DS had a pick of 3 schools so we could go with the one that suited him - I will say the choice suited him though and his friends went to different ones

Your area might be particularly bad, OP. The midlands, unfortunately, is a region that shows consistently poor educational outcomes compared to many other regions in the UK. I have live across three counties in the past eight years and the schools have generally all been very good. In my kids' currently primary, they are in a class of 22, they both have music lessons and plenty of trips. The secondary school they will attend had a top-notch auditorium and brilliant sports facilities too.

I think it depends on the school. My kids are at a secondary where there is zero tolerance of bad behaviour, it is one of the ‘super strict’ approaches (walking single file, no talking, etc…) and it does have results. Not all kids suit it but it’s good for my kids. There is the occasional fight but I do not believe that there is not fighting going on in private ever (I know for a fact there can be horrific bullying/drug issues!).

But we wwre lucky this was our catchment school, the other local school there was no way my kids were attending it. I would have got a second job to send them to private!!!

I'm pretty sure there were schools in the 80s that were a bit rubbish too! My son's state comprehensive school has new dedicated science labs, refitted two years ago. It has cricket, rugby and hockey pitches, arrangements to access six newly refurbished tennis courts in the public park opposite and keeps two boats at the rowing club five minutes walk away. There's a gym, two sports halls, a library, kitchens and workshops for CDT/technology lessons, dedicated music rooms with a newly-installed recording studio and brand new computer facilities for writing, editing and remixing music. Okay, so there's no pool and the pupils only have a choice of three modern foreign languages and no latin, but that's a pretty niche interest these days.

It's well worth investigating the state of local schools when choosing where to live and start a family, as there is admittedly wide variation between state schools. I taught science until a few years ago and the lab I had was in a much worse state than the redundant labs my son's school is temporarily using as overflow classrooms for other subjects (they'll be stripping the fittings out over the summer holidays).