AIBU to question rising private school fees amid declining GCSE results

I don’t believe you are not the same OP as the A level thread, as your comments are exactly the same as theirs, as is your repetitive reply style.
Just keep banging on about the “one third”…

This is your advice to fitness about their children, while refusing to remove your child from the private school they attend? Do as I say but not as I do, right?

Your behaviour is laughable

They say they aren't... oh who cares. This whole thing is a weird attempt to 'expose' things we all know about anyway.

@MyKindHikerthe OP has an issue with private education because they’re currently paying for their child to attend private school without a guarantee that their child will do better than their peers in state education, therefore it is a “waste of money”

Different experiences. My kids have attended a few top private schools between them and at any one point between 30 and 50% of the class members were children of staff members.

But I just don't feel duped?

My kid gets more extra curricular, a class of 15 and extra attention. He gets to learn an instrument, play sports competitively, his school has a pottery studio and a theatre, he gets to do LAMDA exams. None of these things are available in any of our local state schools where the classes are 32 and the teachers are very stretched with all sorts of challenges including social challenges and issues from children not speaking English as a primary language.

I would love to see the comprehensive sector better funded to be able to tackle these challenges head-on and I'm happy to pay more taxes towards that goal.

Yes, some of the extra stuff my fees cover is annoying, but it's also annoying that my taxes go to pay Nigel Farage's expense bill so it's not a perfect world.

I urge you to take your issues up with your child’s private school and/or remove them at the earliest opportunity. Your disdain for private education is ridiculous and hilarious! Who continues to pay for a service they have such an issue with as you do?

@MyKindHiker My DD attended 4 private schools. In 3, I cannot remember any staff dc at all. Can be used for marketing I guess but I’m not sure teaching salaries pay £7,000 a term or way more for a secondary school place. There would need to be a great discount! 50% of staff doesn’t reflect my experience.

The school administration point is a tricky one. Because it's of course very annoying. But the reality is I want my kids to have continuity of teaching staff and be taught by the best teachers. And with the cost of living crisis teaching salaries are increasingly not paying enough to make ends meet. Fees discount is a massive draw for great teaching staff to work in private schools (ie: the schools keep their wage bill down but set this off by offering discounted fees).

It's absolutely true that if you're a head teacher in a private school, a huge lever to reduce fees overall would be to reduce staff discounts. But it would also mean half your staff would walk out the door overnight, as these schools' main way of retaining staff is to effectively hold their children hostage. On a teaching salary, very few could afford full fees (£50k after tax £40k, fees of £20k... doesn't give much left for food or mortgage) so they have to stay teaching at their kids' school as long as their kid is there.

My point is, heads in private schools need to run a business and balance the books.

The university situation is even worse - it's an absolute joke. I come from Ireland, where university is free. Not only did I leave university without debt, I left with a decent chunk of savings. A country that makes it difficult to get an education has its priorities complete arse about face.

But this is already the case with university, right? On the face of it, anyone can get a loan and go to uni, but the reality is that on many courses it's not possible to work enough to get the money you need, and parents have to chip in. If parents can't afford that, bright kids have to choose universities close to home (assuming that's an option for them) so that they don't pay accommodation costs and food. The university closest to them may not be a good one. So some children are getting a better education. I'm not saying it's right, but as we accept it for university, why not school?

I'm just not sure what your information was that you ever thought they were idyllic meadows of opportunity? They are very obviously not. No one with more than 2 brain cells believes they are.

There is definitely a lot of marketing gloss around scholarships and bursaries but anyone can read the small print and see that most of them are just staff discounts or (in the case of some top institutions) given as discretionary places to the children of influential peers, celebrities etc. It's all public information so it's not really a cover-up.

Is it distasteful? Sure. But then the whole idea one can buy a better educational experience for one's child if one has enough money is pretty distasteful. But then we live in a world in which money can buy a better house, better health, better holidays. It is what it is. The only solution is a communist takeover and I don't think the people of this country want that.

What I find a bit frustrating is people who buy into the idea of an exclusive education for their kids but then express anger that this exclusive and inherently unfair system is... unfair.

So what's your solution? Stop private education?

The possible solution/s are where a far more interesting discussion is to be had rather than just whinging about problems everyone is well aware of.

Ohhhhhh ok.

So the OP is trying to expose the 'conspiracy' that you can pay for private and not be guaranteed top grades? And the 'hidden secret' that financial problems in the private sector exacerbated by VAT increases mean fees have had to go up in the round to make up for holes in schools' P&Ls caused by pupil dropouts and other financial hardship? And the huge surprise that private doesn't = social mobility?

Yeah that's not a conspiracy. Or a secret. Anyone with a brain and an internet connection knows these things. The information is available to all of us and we make our choices based on that information.

If OP didn't do her DD that's on her...