Did you go to private or grammar and are sending your child to state school?

But the first school on that list that actually admits on proximity rather than selective results is Holland Park at no 4 and then the next 'proximity' admission at no 6
is Graveney, both with a house prices which ate actually lower than the surrounding area. Likewise the Oratory commands low (sic) local
prices, which is hardly surprising because where you live has absolutely no bearing on your chances of a place at the school.

So, a press release written by the Good Schools Guide and Estate Agents.

I am sure many schools targeted as THE school to go to by middle class families do affect house prices , but there are also countless excellent schools where people just happen to live.

Jasper I am in one of the catchments mentioned in this article. Premium for house in catchment is estimated at 200%+. It's ludicrous.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/news/10789846/Popular-state-schools-creating-mini-house-bubble.html

I went to a private girls school, as did my 3 siblings. Although we all went to uni only one of us 'excelled' at it and has a good career probably from it. A few girls in my year still ended up as teenage mothers so I don't think that's statistically much different from our local HS which has a good reputation. DH and I can't afford private and I really don't think it's worth it - the DDs will just need to work hard and if I feel they are struggling in a subject I plan to get a private tutor- still much cheaper than private school.

Jasper
Does buying a house in the catchment area of a good school really cost all that much
I cannot afford to buy the house I live in
in a shitty catchment.
To get a house in a decent catchment would cost 25% more
which I still cannot afford.

Houses are many many times average salaries : only those in the top 20% of earnings can afford to buy at all at the moment.

I went to private (secondary - well, come to think of it primary too, but that was abroad so different) and will almost certainly send my child to state. A number of reasons for this. I enjoyed my time at school but with hindsights there were many drawbacks and it was a very limiting experience in many ways. Partly, having gone into the arts, I am unlikely to be able to afford it - but even if I could, I would be looking at our excellent local grammar or outstanding state schools first rather than the private school my brother went to.

I went to private (secondary - well, come to think of it primary too, but that was abroad so different) and will almost certainly send my child to state. A number of reasons for this. I enjoyed my time at school but with hindsights there were many drawbacks and it was a very limiting experience in many ways. Partly, having gone into the arts, I am unlikely to be able to afford it - but even if I could, I would be looking at our excellent local grammar or outstanding state schools first rather than the private school my brother went to.

Does buying a house in the catchment area of a good school really cost all that much in (possibly non-London) places? I live in the catchment area of the local desirable comprehensive, but most of the rest of the local secondary schools are very good, too, and houses in this area aren't more expensive than in other areas of similar niceness and convenience out of catchment.

I went to a crap comprehensive. Dds realistic choice of state school comprehensive was a different one, but with the same shit leadership, ethos and teaching. Therefore she's at independent. Wouldn't have gone through the whole scholarship/ bursary process, or for that matter scrimped to pay full fees if I was a bit better off, if the local state alternatives were any good. However buying into catchment for the good ones, or a decade of fake religion wasn't an option.

Page 6 of this report
www.killik.com/site/assets/files/30055/seq620_killik_privateeducationreport_2col_0614.pdf
Show how much private school fees have risen above inflation since 1990.

In the private school where I work fees have increased on average by 5% for the last few years - well above the average wage rise.

I live in the third poorest ward of a borough which is in the bottom third for deprivation in London. It is very rough. It seems to me that locally, a high proportion of m/c family with enough disposable income to go private for secondary choose to do just that. The make up of local primaries is markedly different from that of local secondaries. I have ended up sending my own DC to comps out of borough which are more representative of the wider community in London. It makes me sad that my DC can't continue locally in the sort of classes that they were in in primary, which have the full spread of ability and social background.

Should add that the two nearest comps are both OFSTED rated 'good' with excellent value added.

(I do live in a borough which is on average very much 'not wealthy', and has some of the poorest wards in the country)

Nicole: you did suggest that private ed buys a route out from children who make teaching and learning harder...implying a social reason for buying private ed - to escape these children.

Perhaps I live in a less wealthy area, but not one child in DC's class left primary to go to private school - the secondary has the complete academic range including some children who were doing L8 maths in Yr 8.

The money spent per head - that is a huge difference. Does it include Pupil Premuim? Because many London schools have high levels of FSM?I guess London weighting on teachers salaries, and higher land and overheads would account for some - but who decides, and why such discrepancies?

Nicole - the only dc at my children's primary schools who left for private are those who had SN (one with autism, one with very severe dyslexia). One or two went private for secondary, with only modest additional tutoring.
In some areas there may be a mass exodus to private, but not in our part of North London. Fwiw.

DH and I were both privately educated. The DC are highly likely to be state educated primarily because the fees are just unaffordable - I haven't even bothered thinking much about what I'd prefer because private just isn't an option. However, I did have a very positive experience at my (girls') school - didn't see any massive bitchness (or at least, none higher than with any girls), I don't feel that I was hugely shielded from 'real life' (whatever that means anyway), and I did well academically. Impossible to know how I'd have fared in a state school.

I do hope that the DC will achieve their full potential in the state system, and I hope that they will get all the opportunities I got. It worries me that there is only one chance with their education, and we only have one choice. But that's that. So far, oldest is only Y3, but I can't see how she'd be doing better in the private system, which is positive.

I've heard that school fees have increased far faster than wages over the past few decades - does any one have any information which shows if that's true?

Thank you for starting this thread. It has reassured me greatly about dd and her being fine in state education.

One of the reasons for better schools is ...

... that you get loads of cash thrown at you.

the City of London getting the most at £8,595 ahead of Tower Hamlets (£7,014) and Hackney (£6,680.05) ... At the other end of the scale, Cambridgeshire is the worst funded per-pupil at £3,950, followed by South Gloucestershire (£3,969) and Leicestershire (£3,995)

"I wouldn't assume the overall reasons for a higher level of private ed are based on feral London youth, or as having a disastrous effect on the make up of London's schools!"

I didn't say or imply that London state schools are in a state of crisis. You have put that spin on my words.

But their make up and character IS affected by the large numbers of high ability children who are educated separately.

My brother's children attend a state perfectly decent state primary school in west London. Every single child who was on the top table for maths left in year 4 and 5, apart from my nephew. They all left to go to private schools in preparation for selection at 11. In my dc's primary class in a much rougher part of London 4 of the brightest children in a class of 30 have disappeared to attend private schools. It's really depressing. Both my boys were in properly mixed classes representing the full range of ability. Towards the end of primary there's a sort of 'winnowing out', the result of which is that the local comprehensive appears to be almost entirely lacking that cohort of very high achieving children. Bright children - yes, these children are there. But the ones who have had parental support and tutoring to turn that brightness into achievement at a very high level, they've gone.

I agree that London schools are better than many others, and there are complex reasons for this. One of the reasons for better schools is that we have great access to a very large pool of teaching talent from abroad, compared to places outside London. We also have very large numbers of children from immigrant families, who pound for pound, seem to achieve vastly higher than children from white English families who are attending similar schools and whose parents are in the same sort of income bracket.

Thank god for immigrants I say. The heads of the crappest schools in London must give praise every day for the immigrant children who land in their schools, bringing their education loving families and great work-ethic with them.

On the other way round...

I was state educated all through and NEVER imagined paying to go private. But I was driven to it by the utter chaos in the local state primary, which badly let down my first child. I now have one in private senior and a another in private junior. I am not saying this to boast - rather it is to express my intense frustration that I felt I had no choice in order to get my kids the same standards of academic focus (and in our case a good musical experience) that I had. I earn just enough to make it feasible, though it has affected everything else we do. I envy those who live in an area with a good comp or grammar schools. Our neck of the woods is a bit patchy on that front!

We were both privately educated all the way through - and boarded from 8 and 11 respectively. We have four children and the secondary fees for schools that I would consider here, would be about £120k a year - even to the day schools. Even on a six figure salary, we just can't do it, and have a life, eat, keep a roof over our heads etc.

So they will be going through the state system - and already DS1 is at a superselective grammar (one of the best in the country), DD has just taken her 11+ and fingers are firmly crossed that she gets into grammar - and DSs 3 and 4 will take it and we'll see! We are very lucky that we have excellent state options here, and many people move from London to take advantage of this (we did). Therefore the schools at both primary and secondary are extremely good, parents are very motivated about their children's education and are very involved in the schools and there are a huge range of extracurricular activities and clubs in the area to give the breadth of options outside of school - it just means we do a lot of ferrying about to things, rather than them being on site. Yes, they are perhaps less 'polished' or confident than some privately educated children, but we try to teach them manners and encourage them to behave like moderately civilised human beings .

I do have moments when I feel sad that they won't have the same experiences we had - but I think that nowadays it is necessary to have so much money to send more than 2 children to decent private schools, that it's a totally false reality and doesn't let children experience the 'real world' - one could argue that some of them will never have to inhabit it, but most will - at work, at university etc, and I think it's important to understand that not everyone skis in the winter, goes to Barbados at Christmas and is on a yacht in the summer (I have my tongue in my cheek a little bit here).....

At DS1s school this week, the private school children were absolutely horrified that they were going to have to sit on the floor in a whole school assembly which did make me smile....even at my very expensive private school we had to sit on the floor - things have changed a bit!!

DH and I were both privately educated and our DC will be going state

1. We just can't in any way afford it. I have no idea who can really these days. Our parents were all teachers but there's no way teachers kids are going to private school now

1. I was brought up in a rural idyll with no choice of school but now live in an academic city where there's really no such thing as a bad school just more and less good ones. I don't reckon it's worth bankrupting ourselves for.

1. Arrogantly I think I would have done just as well with or without my private school. It was non-selective, perfectly reasonable but nothing special. My parents had far more of an influence through their support at home. Research is on my side with this.

My kid shave had a much better education at their comp than I ever got at my private selective school.

This is of interest to me, DS isn't at school yet but DH went to a mix of private and then very selective Grammar and I went to my closest run of the mill (quite bad actually) school and we've turned out to be pretty similar people (although he is to be fair higher earning now but we are in wildly different industries and mine is low paid). He wants DS to go to a private school very close to our house while I want him to go to the close Outstanding state primary. My arguement is that why would you commit that amount of money to educating a 4 year old when you have no idea what the state school is like in comparison as they aren't really tested on the same level, and that an outstanding state can be better than a middling private school. But then I see that we want DS to have the best shot at the Grammar when the time comes as (my lefty principles aside) it is one of the best schools in the country and of course I'd want to maximise his chances of getting there. God, education is hard. I suppose I should be happy to have choices but I just went to the closest school to me, no other choice where I lived!

I went to secondary modern and then private. All my siblings went to grammar and private, or just private.

My DC are going to comprehensive, even though we have grammar schools (super selectives) in my town...I ship them out to a neigbouring town. (TBH only DS1 would have got into the grammar school) All my siblings DC attend/ed state schools. All my friends from the private school I went to send their DC to state schools. Sorry one sends her DSC to a private school, but they live abroad and I think she may want them to have a British education, knowing they will move back to the UK...or she may have chosen an nice private school if she lived in London, or elsewhere in the UK...who knows...

There are no private schools near me I would be willing to send my DC to, apart from a public school at £30Kpa which I couldn't afford.

I know quite a few people from baby groups when DS1 was a baby who sent their DC to the near by public school (when I say quite a few there are only about 12 in Y7, but I seemed to know them all). When they all started in Y7 I lamented, thinking DS wouldn't achieve what his peers from baby group would just because they were going to a public school and he was going to a comprehensive even though DS had obviously been the brightest baby He's just started Y12 with very good GCSE results. Not all A*s, but I honestly don't think he would have got better results if he'd been to the public school. I genuinely believe the state school he attends have got the maximum out of him any school could. He could have done better if he's put in more work, but that was never going to happen whatever school he went to. The school he attends is a "good" school, nothing outstanding, but it's really worked for him, and I pray it works for DS2 too.

I realise not everyone is lucky enough to be able to send their DC to a state school which works for their DC. There are some fab independent schools out there, and some dire ones....a bit like state schools really.