If you send your child to private school…

We had no intention of going down this path but our local high school is terrible. Both the results and the behaviour. Starting next year and I hope it’s worth it.

I think basic expectations are classroom control, which is woefully inadequate in many cases. A lot of state teachers are just burnt out and going through the motions, which can make the environment very negative for the children because they can't be relied upon to keep control and maintain a positive learning environment.

A lot of children do not feel physically safe in mainstream schools and so many parents are expressing concerns at the situation across the country that it is not isolated incidents. I think this point is just being brushed aside and not taken as seriously as it should

Plus there is an inconsistency in the quality of teachers. Not all are as good as they should be. There are some bright ones that do make a difference but then that hard work is often undone by mediocre or under performing teachers. I think that this is a taboo subject rarely acknowledged because parents who question teaching standards are often demonised as being difficult. Couple that with a weak SLT and the environment is inevitably negative.

There is clearly a crisis in education that needs to be addressed; however many parents won't stand by and watch their children be swallowed up in the problems. Hence the rise in home education and private school support.

Because teenagers often get up to no good when unsupervised, bored and hanging around. The trouble starts when they stop playing and start experimenting.
When all your friends live a few miles away, you're more content to do your homework, watch a bit of TV and chat to your friends on the phone. You're not putting pressure on your parents to let you go out every evening to hang around.

1000% been worth it. Equally I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when GCSEs are over (2yrs….) as the expense is a strain. My DD would not have thrived in Y7 in the massive state secondaries we have local to us. She was so timid and overwhelmed. Her current school has brought out of her shell and she’s so confident and looking forward to going to a bigger 6th form. At the same time she has (and always has) recognised and embraced the opportunities her private school offers her.

Absolutely the same for us. No regrets. We do have some family support with the fees.

My DC have had a lovely school experience so far.
Another unexpected bonus was that we made some good friends amongst the parents, which I wasn’t expecting at all, and I hope these friendships will last many years to come.

Small with little bad behaviour is better suited to most kids surely. That's not specific to your child

Nice holidays woulda been better use of the money

No regrets for me - we did secondary at private, all the local schools were either massively oversubscribed or poorly run.

Both DCs enjoyed their experience with good GCSEs and A levels. Extra curric also good plus extra teaching support at lunch time. They were that sporty other than the usual PE activities. They also did DofE.

Are they happy?
Ours aren’t privately educated because we think it will get them into any particular career. We do it for their happiness now.

My DS in private school but its only 5k for the year, not per month. We are in Ireland. It's a great school with a fantastic history. There are still some little shits in his year though....local state schools poor selection. One has a huge furry community so that was a hard no 🙈

Not all private schools cost that much. In the north-west it is around £18K a year, which works out at less than £1500 a month. I pay that as a single parent, out of a salary that is only just over half of yours, by cutting back spending in other areas (no holidays etc...)

My friends privately educated kids - ones a builder, ones a hairdresser

If one wants decent schooling you can either pay for private school or you can pay for the house next to the outstanding state school.

Both scenarios have a paywall.

Mine still play out with their friends from their state primary school!

Why on Earth would being able to play out with their friends be a negative?

There’s going to be a selection bias in private schools towards the less able pupils and those with additional needs.

It’ll be offset to some extent by the fact that high intelligence leads both to higher salaries (as a cohort) and higher intelligence children.

Absolutely not worth it. It's a total con in my view.

My daughter has been in private education since reception (now in Y11 doing her GCSEs). You can get the exact same, if not better, education for free, but it's hard to get out once you're sucked in because you don't want to disrupt their education. I should have taken her out in Y9 the latest.

It has definitely been worth it for our children for the smaller class sizes, extracurricular opportunities and great pastoral care.

Absolutely worth it. You're not paying for the education, you're paying for the right type of friends and general ethos of learning and doing well as a respected (peer-wise) ambition.
Private schools often have the advantage of being further away which means your kid doesn't know people in the area so they're not looking to be out every evening hanging around with their mates.
It's only 5-10k a year in Ireland, so a much easier decision.

100% worth it. I feel like my son came out of school a really well rounded young person, equipped to deal with being at university. DH and I both went to state school and we turned out fine but the local state high schools were diabolical and we felt like even though he comes from a good home, he could easily be caught up with the wrong crowd. The amount of homework at DS school was excessive at times and the sporting commitments were a lot but it instilled a good work ethic in DS, and to be honest, he was so busy he didn’t have time to get into trouble.
I loved that the small class sizes meant teachers knew my son very well. We really liked that his Reception teacher came to the leavers BBQ and I think she was genuinely proud of all the strapping lads around her that she had taught as tiny little boys. It was hard financially, but completely worth it to see DS so happy and well adjusted.

I work in HE and I don’t think it’s down to neurodivergence, no. It’s because those kids who do well enough to get in to the course I teach from mediocre state schools really are bright and self motivated. Private school pupils may have been spoon fed and given a lot of individual support that simply isn’t available at university. Thats why we make contextual offers and someone from a private school would need AAA but someone from a less than great state school would be offered ABB.
To be fair, it’s not true in every case at all. Lots of privately educated kids are seriously bright and do exceptionally well at university.

Yeah I have zero concerns that my kids need to earn a particular salary or achieve certain grades for it to be ‘worth’ it. It might well be that they struggle more as young adults. But they’ve had a happy experience of school and tried things and not been miserable for years of their young lives.

as for the whole high income vs working people debate, this wasn’t the question was it, it was whether pp thought they’d spent their money well.

Is that because of the high level of neurodiversity in private schools? From the replies to this post it appears that a lot of kids are in private schools because they struggle to cope in state schools. I suppose it’s possible (in some cases at least) that once they leave that small nurturing environment they effectively return to baseline, but with the confidence the small classes/great facilities, etc. has helped them to develop?

The people I hear that from the most are state school teachers TBH.

When people say things like state school is on its knees / schooling is inadequate, what are your expectations? I personally think state school teaching is pretty good. Not perfect but not awful either.