Politics aside, is private school usually a better experience of education for kids compared with state?

@RhaenysRocks

I can see your point about the cost effectiveness from the POV of the LA of sending some kids with SEN to a private school. I don’t think that’s the norm though because kids who have general learning difficulties struggle to get much funding, so they wouldn’t be able to justify paying say £20k for one child with severe dyslexia, when that money could help several children. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, however in the LA where I live they would be placed in mainstream with some funded hours at the most. There is one special school but that’s only for those children with profound and multiple learning disabilities. The rest are sent to mainstream with varying degrees of funding.

I do agree that private schools can be good for some pupils for various reasons
and especially those with SEN. If the parents can afford to pay then I don’t blame them, however most people can’t afford to send their children to private school and that’s the crux of it. That’s what I mean when I say they aren’t socially diverse, though I accept some will be more than others.

To do this you need to look at the actual schools you would send your child to and see whether you think the state or private schools would give your child a better educational experience.

In my experience, in many (but certainly not all) cases, it’s like comparing Butlins in the UK with a luxury resort in Greece.

Both provide the basics, but one is a bit, better.

I find the ‘private school kids are spoonfed’ criticism to be an odd one, as if a children being supported to reach their full potential is somehow a bad thing.
It’s especially odd when another argument against private schools is that it’s unfair for certain children to get a quality of education that all children should be receiving. So ‘spoonfeeding’ is simultaneously aspirational and something to be denigrated.

The idea that success in life isn’t valid unless you’ve made it against the odds is a noxious one, frankly. Education isn’t supposed to be the hunger games.

It’s impossible to generalise.

My friend’s daughters went to a girls’ grammar school. I suspect their experience was closer to the experience mine had at a selective girls’ independent than it would have been to the experience of someone at an underperforming secondary modern school.

I suspect that the experience mine had was more similar to that of my friend’s children than it would have been to the experience of children in a boarding school like Marlborough.

There are also comprehensives and comprehensives. One of my sisters teaches in a comprehensive. So does one of my daughters. From what I hear, they are a million miles apart in terms of pupil achievement, behaviour, parental engagement, effective leadership/management and staff turnover. I imagine children in the two schools have very different experiences

The first 10k of any fees will just replicate state provision - thats how much it would cost a private school on average to replicate state level provision.

Money on top of that will go to creating smaller classes, possibly better facilities, more specialist teachers etc.

DD1 went from private to state to private. Whether it's better in private depends on the local offering you have available. Some privates are good academically but poor socially. Others have all the bells and whistles, but are academically unambitious. You have to match the school to the child (and that goes for state too). DD1 could have gone to state secondary, but we didn't get any of our school choices and I can say that the private school has provided more academic opportunity for her and much wider and better extra curriculars.

DD2 has only been in state, and will likely stay there unless she's sent to a SEN independent by the council. Her state primary has been far better on the SEN front than I saw happening at DD1s private primary, but the academic progress/attainment is lower (though on the SAT results is apparently what the state expects/is happy with).

Paedophilia in private schools would be a big concern for me. There's two supposedly very prestigious within North Yorkshire alone where it's been rife for years and very organised. Obviously that's just the ones who got caught. Kind of makes you wonder who's overseeing all that lot.

For us the main goal is our child’s happiness and an enjoyable school experience. We have looked at a lot of prep schools and found many to be either extremely academically competitive or a bit fur coat no knickers where it seems the facilities are the main draw and the teaching is mediocre. We have finally found a school which is small, has excellent teachers, a rigorous curriculum and great pastoral support. What really sealed it though was how happy the children were, how much time was spent in sports and nature and the variety of subjects on offer. I’d suggest looking at a wide range of schools both state and private and finding the right fit for your child

Having been to both public and private, yes, there is a big difference most of the time.

manly because if some children are too disruptive, they’re asked to leave the school. This means that teachers can actually teach. They’re not caught up in having to repeatedly stop teaching to address unruly behaviour.

secondly, many of my friends (and myself) in private school would attend revisions courses during school breaks. Not so my friends in public sector.

Knowing how to structure your course notes while in class for future revision, how to revise as well as creating a revision time table for yourself and how to interpret exam questions were part of our courses. My friends in state sector hadn’t really thought about this so already were at disadvantage when it was time to revise for exams.

emphasis in private, in my own experience, was to try to get high exam scores in order to get into good universities. My public school friends, on the most part (but not all), were just trying to get through them. Not a lot of thought had been given when Choosing gcse subjects to understand how that fed into A levels the uni courses were requiring for the subjects they wanted to read at uni and did t understand how it worked back to gcse choices and grades.

Rubbish.

• small classes - hugely advantageous
• zero tolerance of disruption, even low-level
• relaxed and enthusiastic teachers not weighed down by govt bureaucracy or stress from riot- control
• excellent music and drama and sport provision
• often early and late clubs and really good clubs
• high expectations and students given a lot of responsibility

I’m a parent whose children went to state schools but I’ve taught in a public school.

Like others have said i guess it depends very much on the school. I've got one in private (which started in state) and one in state and for our particular private and state schools the advantages of private are as follows:

1. Smaller vlass size (allows for more teacher contact time and better teacher supervision, easier to speak up, quieter environment, more facilties for each child)
2. Extremely fast response time to any query: thr admin is worth 90% of the school fees. She usually replies to emails within an hour and always gives accurate information. Teachers also reply to queries within one or at the most 2 days and usually really try to find a solution if there is an issue.
3. Lots of opportunities for public speaking sjd performances. They do group and individual performances probably once or twice a term and every child gets an opportunity to perform or have a speaking role.
4. Lots of clubs and opportunities to sing in choir, play in orchestra and try all kinds of stuff. We save some money by sending dc to the free after school clubs rather than wrap around care.
5. Quite relaxed about being late (which is a godsend in our case but more organised qnd competent families wouldn't need it) and absences.
6. Quite diverse and multicultural.
7. Lots and lots and lots of topic and general knowledge kind of work

Things I dont like:

1. The school encourage competition which i dont like. I thought the kids and parents were too.competitive but since dc has joined state school I have realised that most kids are super competitive. The parents at the private school though seem more competitive than the state one, which can be annoying but in our case they are also a helpful and friendly bunch so I don't really mind.
2. Very pushy: they demand a lot from the children and push them to always do more. I worry about the amount of homework and self study thst is expected but I know that some parents think that is a positive and want more of that.

It depends what you define as better.

Private school Advantages:
no behaviour issues (so lessons not disrupted),
small classes (so lots of 1-to-1 time and lots of feedback)
a huge variety of activities on offer (you pay for them but at least they are on offer).

But... one MASSIVE disadvantage of a private school is the lack of academic resilience in pupils.

In a state school, classes are up to 32 pupils, so to succeed you need to be independent, study, and figure things out for yourself - the resilience of learning from your mistakes/failures. In a private school, there is SO much spoon feeding done (small classes!) which is what gets the higher results. That then means that pupils have missed out on the skill of resilience as they've had a lot of hand holding, so this can mean A Levels are more of a challenge, and in particular University can be a struggle as they lack the skills to be self sufficient.

I teach in a state school but lots of the A Level pupils come in from private schools, and although they got grades 7/8/9, their A Level learning skills are massively lacking compared to those who have been in a state school.

Often times for a lot of children who don’t get on in state school due to ND needs, social issues or MH issues etc.

We have one child in state secondary and we put our autistic, geeky son in mainstream private. He wasn’t coping with the hullabaloo of the local (supposedly outstanding) state secondary. The classroom disruption and raucousness was stressing him out and he was regularly beaten up for no reason with no real consequences given to the bullies.

The private school kids are just much kinder people. Less swearing, shouting, punching. Just more respectful to their fellow classmates and teachers. In terms of teaching the teaching itself is no different - we had no issues with the teachers at the state school - but the teachers get a chance to teach. About 25% of every lesson in the state school was crown control. There is none of that in private. The range of clubs and music opportunities is much wider. My shy child has been encouraged into the drama production and is really blossoming. The private school seems to help the students with uni applications much more too. Lots of open days and advice, whereas my state school child was very much left to it.

I really wish I could have afforded to send my state school child private too but we’re not big earners and scraped everything together to send one child private too- and it has changed his life.

It varies so much. There's private schools near us that don’t offer anything except being able to show off that you can afford private school.

DS is at a great school- interestingly plenty are local (15 min walk). They have great sports facilities, dedicated subject teachers beginning in yr1, lots of extracurricular activities, a learning support unit included in fees, very little disruption, a teacher and 2 TAs for 20 pupils in a class and wraparound care available to all.

The local state school has 33 students, no class TA and no field to play on. A nursery mum’s DC are there and disruption is high- and it’s like this in the other local schools.

The only people who can answer that are people who've experienced both. And even then, their opinion will be based on the own subjective experience rather than the relative offers of the schools. My friends son failed to form friendships at his public school, and while the education offer was better, and the environment more pleasing, his experience was miserable compared with his time in state school where he had friends and was happy. If you asked him, he'd say his state experience was better. My friend (his mum) thinks the public school was better.

It is not that simple though. DD who is in Lower Sixth and has a lot of new friends who are ex private school - they all prefer the state grammar! They find the tests hard but are much happier than at their private schools socially speaking.
One even said her old selective private schools was full of spoilt rich kids who set the social scene, did not try that hard and had their parents fight for extra exam time and tutors in the holidays and then just partied non stop and put others down as “swots”. For academic kids that is not the right environment either. I reckon you must get all sorts in all types of school.
Reality is you have to do your due diligence properly whatever school you send your child too and it has to fit with your values and suit your child. There are actually all sorts of different types of school in the state sector too. It is not all homogenous either. The style of the head can really set the scene in different ways as well as the parental demographics and expectations. That will be the same in the private sector. And finally, how a school is governed can also be quite important.
Even in the state sector I have always tried to find a school for my kids where the head has good values of his or her own and is not just quivering before Ofsted and the DFE.

I can only tell you our experience but yes, private was better in every way, including:

Good teachers, supportive pastoral care
Good exam results, our children did well
Great premises and grounds, beautiful buildings
Great sports facilities and other facilities, plenty of books and equipment
The school cared about parents' opinions and acted on feedback or complaints
Well organised, relevant school trips, e.g. Italy for sports, Berlin for history
Good special needs and dyslexia support
Small class sizes, 20 ish

The alternative state schools near us:

Terrible exam results
Large number of internal and external exclusions
CCTV everywhere
Police on site because of the drug problem
Not enough books or equipment
No interest in what parents thought or in dealing with complaints
Terrible SEN provision
I counted 36 in one room when visiting to look around

I work in one and would say if you don’t care about grades and the environment is your priority, the environment is 100x better in private. I’ve worked in state and private. Private is much more individualised, less cookie cutter pressure of state, a whole child approach, amazing access to music, arts and theatre that can never be replicated in state because the government don’t value it in the same way, beautiful buildings and grounds (it does make a difference whether people like that or not), freedom to learn off curriculum, teachers often who have had more varied and interesting backgrounds.

LAs fund children at independent s if a tribunal concluded that is the best way to meet their need. It may be cheaper to do that than fund transport to a specialist school far away. We've had kids paid for by LA due to severe dyslexia where very small classes in a mainstream setting give the support needed, Ditto some with AuADHD. There are no universally true statements about any of this but you confident assert that "most" parents at private aren't ordinary. Along with many, I question what that means. Is two professional salaries extraordinary? Outside of the SE, that would allow at least one child to go to a private school from a pretty ordinary home.

I haven’t any experience of a British state schools, but I was an intentional student that went to a private school in the UK and loved it. We had small class sizes, little no disruption in lessons, greater diversity of subjects, and great facilities. While it may have been less financially diverse than some state schools, there was certainly social and cultural diversity (I was far from alone in being an international student) forged lifelong friendships there. This is of course entirely anecdotal, but compared to people I know that went to state school, I would take my experience over theirs.

Statistically, there is a wage gap between the privately educated and the state educated, with the former earning £10000 more by the age of 30.

Obviously there are poorer private schools and better state schools, but generally speaking there’s a better chance of having a good experience in private over state imo. That the state educations sector is and has been in a state of crisis in the UK is well known, although that I find that tends to be glossed over in threads about private education.

My dd changed from state to private in year 9 and we haven’t looked back. She chose a small co-ed school, which felt familiar and safe to her and it is a bit like a bigger version of her former state primary school. She needed this more nurturing environment as she wasn’t coping at all at the former large state secondary. In state school, dd was considered ‘rich’ due to our house size… no it’s not massive. At private school, due to the location and demographic, this definitely is no longer the case.

The school is not super selective. They take pretty much anyone if you start in year 6 or 7. Not so much in later years and for example, I know of 2 kids, who dropped the mandatory language to GCSE and only studied single science (rather than double or triple award) as they aren’t academic. One dropped down a year to be able to do this. Both boys and I would say the boy, who I know better hugely benefited from this environment. He’s very arty and now at university, which would never have been possible had he attended the local state. As dd attended both, I can confirm the art classes were worlds apart.

Dd had the choice of applying for a much more selective single sex school. However, she wanted the small, cosy environment. She’s now at 6th form there. The money is a real bummer as it all comes from savings. But she is absolutely where she needs to be to thrive. She’s finding it harder because there’s only about 30 in her year. But she still needs somewhere, which fits like an old shoe.

She and her friends called the state school she went to ‘the prison’. I know of other state schools in the area, which are not run like this. But a lot are and it’s quite fashionable atm for academies to be run a bit like prisons. Dd wasn’t in catchment for the 2 schools she may have coped with better but as her year was a particularly large cohort, she didn’t get in when kids in previous and subsequent years have. So I’d say absolutely luck of the draw.

As someone mentioned upthread, if you have a very academically able, confident child, they will likely thrive anywhere. State schools single these kids out to propel them forward whereas those, who are in the middle are barely noticed. And one parent’s evening in year 8 (we didn’t have one for year 7 due to the pandemic) sent alarm bells ringing. Dd was described by teacher after teacher as quiet and reluctant to participate and in PE as not very able when the opposite was the case.

I would say if you are less fussed about academic outcome but about the environment, I’d look toward dd’s type of school. Your dc will very likely naturally attain higher grades anyway. Just make sure that the school is financially sound. This type of school is more at risk of closure in the advent of vat introduction.

Dd’s school hasn’t suffered precisely because of the location with an above average number of monied, rural parents. And because of this, the head expects a certain standard of behaviour and isn’t scared to ask kids to leave. The school has a much lower threshold for this than state school. As a result, the school generally doesn’t expel / exclude anyone as behaviour is not left to fester and become a large problem. Doing it this way gives the kids an opportunity to reflect on their behaviour and potentially prove themselves elsewhere.

Networking opportunities, from what I've been told by people who attended a private school.

I still can't get my head round the fact that there were parents of pupils in a supposedly prestigious Edinburgh private school who paid one of my state school colleagues to tutor their children - because they were failing a core subject, in spite of the advantage of being in a school with small class sizes.

Just go round a private school and then a state school. It will be pretty obvious I think. Sports and extracurricular opportunities the most different. Core education is similar, just likely to be in smaller classes at private.