Independant and State grammar Seconday education

I know a few families where one child went independent and another went to the local selective grammar. (A bit different than going to the local comp perhaps, I realise.) No tension there AFAIK - with the siblings I know best, it was entirely their choice and they are both fiercely proud of their alma maters. So if it is the child's choice I don't see a problem.

I'm not sure where this idea comes from that Eton sets boys up for some incredible career and all-round fabulous life (and that no girl's school can offer the same - the OEs I know are, well, posh... and averagely successful. They are teachers, lawyers and public servants. They're not David Cameron. (Thank god.)

More and more, I think the school you attend matters far, far less than the family you are from. At the school where DH teaches, most of the teachers' children attend (it's a public school), but a few go to the local grammar (which is very, very good). And you know what? Those who are now in their 20s all appear to have ended up in pretty much the same place on a social and career basis as their privately educated siblings.

Life is an immobile, locked,
Three-handed struggle between
Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)
The unbeatable slow machine
That brings what you'll get.

Philip Larkin

To quote Larkin They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

I work with people and frequently meet adolescence and adults who are jealous of their siblings. It is uncommon for different schools to be the sole cause of this. Often both siblings feels the same way and site numerous examples of this. Siblings we can find lots of things to back this up if they want to too; I always got her cast offs, she got a bigger room than me, the prettier dress, the white guinea pig they knew I wanted etc. But I suspect that in general most parents try hard to be fair although this does not mean treating them identically and do what they feel at that particular moment in time is the right thing or maybe the only thing they could do; there were only three bedrooms and one of you had to have the smaller room, the dress was not available in your size but you did get another one that you loved, but you were given a pony the previous year so your sister got the white guinea pig etc. In most cases one may have got one thing but the other gained in another way but it is human nature to forget.

I see your point but I stick by my comment - yes, different personalities will make a difference to life outcomes but in terms of causing divisions twixt your children (if not now then as adults), you are assuredly setting up a state of affairs where this could be very likely.....

Colleger I went to a dreadful Comp and have a doctorate from Oxford. DH went to a dreadful comp and teaches (once a year) at Oxford. Sandy Toksvig went to what is now a very good girls school, they threw a holiday when her and her friend got to Oxford. 10+ kids a year from the local Comp go to Oxbridge, lots more to other top Unis. I also used to have an OE window cleaner.
All the studies show that parents are the biggest predictor of success.

You don't have to be academic to be successful but I think the generation you come from Mrs J was far more equal. Only the brightest went to university and grammar school was a great social equaliser. However rigour has been eroded from all but a few schools and the attainment gap between inde and state is widening so I think today is very different from when we were at school.

I agree you dont have to be academic to be successful in your career but I am a also realist. We encourage our children to look at careers/universities that will suit them as individuals.

One of my colleagues is an OE and he feels stigmatised by his parents' choice of school. Most people we work with don't know he's an OE for that reason.

Happygardening - this OE is older than me, we went to the same university (at diff times obv) to read the same subject, but he's my junior at work and I went to a state school. So perhaps you shouldn't pre-judge how things might turn out for your offspring. My least academic sister is the most successful in her career.

And I really don't know why you've asked this question on this board because you're not absorbing anyone's comments if they disagree with what you seem so set on doing. Even when you've got someone who has had direct experience of being a child in this situation.
But go ahead and do it, why not.

I never said I resented being born a girl, I said I resented the way that my parents very obviously (and have admitted as much) thought that it was more important to educate boys than girls.
I'm bloody glad I didn't go to the school where they didn't do particularly well academically (despite their gifts) and have felt stigmatised by the whole of their lives. It's the principle I object to.

It's a valid point we had a friend who had one at indpendent day one at boarding they felt the one at boarding missed out on day to day family life so they eventually move her. But I still believe that we have to do what feels right at the time.
With regard to the remarks made gazzalw my DS's spent six years in the same boarding prep and emerged as two completely different people then they were two completely different personalities when they went. As parents were are not trying create identical clones we are surely just trying to find a way to enable children to grow into happy well balanced adults.

gasalw - very good point. I do think being sent to boarding school divided me from my sisters. I am extremely happy that I did go but my teenage years were so different from my sisters - we really became strangers. My sister says it was like having a lodger come to live with them in holidays.

I don't think any one has said that your daughters resent being born female. You say there are no girls schools that are equal to Eton, did you look at Roedean, Benendean, Downe House and the like or just take your daughter to see the local girls independent school. I think the choice you offered her was not the in the same league as the one facing your son.

What would concern me about this issue is not that the younger children will resent the different educational experience that they have received, but that there could potentially be a vast social/value gap twixt your children as they grow up and into adult life. If you send one child to Eton (and I speak as someone who has no direct experience of any of the top public schools), surely they will come out of it with very different attitudes, experiences, expectations and values to your children who have been educated in the state system? This could be very divisive in terms of their relationships with each other as adults....

I have one Ds at Win Coll one at a comp (the best in the county) I could not afford to send them both to independent boarding schools and the local day schools are not better than the our local comp. Neither would be happy at the others school. I too have agonised over the "unfairness" of it. Will the one at the comp turn round in the future and say you spent all that money on my brothers education instead of spreading it equally, or will the other say I was sent away to school and whilst my brother was always at home?! I have no idea. I suspect the one at Win Coll will go to a top uni. the one at the comp may not.
We love them both we cant treat them equally because they are not the same we do what we think is right for them as individuals. The one at the comp is blissfully happy, involved in local activities and has lots of local friends the fact that he is unlikely to get as good exam results basically comes down to the fact that he is not as clever as the other one or as motivated. But this does not make him any less of a person that than my other DS people are not just exams and universities he has so many other fantastic qualities.
MauAnt you must do what you think is right for your individual children; well done you DS for getting in to Eton, ignore the unpleasant spiteful postings MrsJAlfredPrufrock in particular has a chip on her shoulder the size of a tower block when it comes to schools like Eton.
Children more than anything else need love and stability. Some above have talked about their resentment because their siblings were educated privately etc but I think if your looking for a reason to blame on how you feel you can find one one what ever your parents do.

Actually it's not unusual for Eton. Once you have been offered a Pre-test place (which her son has done) a bursary application is approved between 2/3 years in advance subject to finances changing.

Agrre with muminscotland. You've raised his expectations, so now would be hard to go back. But will you give all the DC the chance to go for scholarships at top boarding schools - to suit their particular talents - if they wished to do so? Probably not, because the money will have been spent on one sibling who is more "spcecial", too special even to attend a top state grammar, which is deemed Ok for them. That is clearly unfair.

The reference to 5 DC is relevant because of your desire to access private education, presumably if you have fewer DC you would have more to put towards all of their education.

MauAunt do you know that he will get an 80% scholarship to Eton (which I suppose would still leave you needing to find approx £6k)?
The thing that worries me about what you've said is that you seem to think the very fact that he's got in means you have no choice but to accept it, since it's something you see as a great achievement. In which case you shouldn't have put him in for it unless you were 100% certain (and in some ways you do seem dead set on it). The other thing that worries me is that there is no equivalent girls' school so there is no way that your daughter could 'match' this achievement.
PS I went to a local state then a v poor girls' school. My brothers to Eton. And yes I do resent it as it seems as though my education was less valued because of my gender.
PPS I did way better than my brothers academically although I don't think i'm any brighter...

OP, how do you know that your younger children will not turn out to be even more talented and able to access independent education than your eldest. And should that happen, how on earth do you explain to them that their brother got the chance simply because he was...what?...older than them?...a boy?

Please tell me you are not wasting your money on Kumon??

A faux Eton Fives court in the back yard would be better, MrsP?