Please can we have a non-fighty thread about the advantages/disadvantages of independent schools....

I came on to mention SEN support.

Unless a dyslexia specialist school on the whole independents can be less accommodating towards SEN (especially those which affect behaviour). By secondary you know if that is your child or not, but at primary level things may not be known when you start.

I do actually think that on average those parents willing and able to pay for independent schooling are likely to be the more involved / educated parents who would directly/indirectly help a state school. (This of course is a mass generalisation and only works as an overview, not when comparing to specific sets of parents).

Whether it is setting up a culture that homework is important (more in class thinking this thus leading to peer pressure that it should be done), spending money at school fairs (leading to more PTA funds, leading to more extras in school), being willing and supportive of learning events, questioning the school if teaching appears to be falling short, etc.

However I absolutely support the existence of independent schools, and do not feel any parent should feel under a moral obligation to use state just to 'help' others.

In theory we could afford independent, but chose not to because of a mixture of

• pastoral / SEN issues
• social reasons
• we have good state schools

Main advantage is that children are not penalised by their peers for being clever and working hard. It's normal. Both my two rather despise anyone who doesn't work hard, and think they're wasting their time, the school's facilities and their parents' money.

Minor advantage: teachers never have a 'doctrinal' issue with telling you exactly where your child sits in a class, performance-wise, according to assessments and tests. You always know exactly where you are and if there's a problem, they are pretty upfront in letting you know. In the state sector we could only find out quite obliquely where the children were; it seemed not quite the done thing to ask, so we didn't.

Another advantage: no silly predictions of GCSE grades when children are 12 by looking at SATs results. Some of my state school parents have had to fight for, eg, sitting triple science, being put into a higher set for English that might get them to an A because tests their children took at 11 indicated that they might not be able to manage this. Completely ridiculous as so many children, especially boys, are late developers. Also this business that used to go on of making children resit GCSEs until they get an A or making them enter GCSEs early and often. Or sitting highly modular science GCSEs. Game-playing and if it hasn't been stopped, it should be.

Main con of private is that my two have lost contact with some, not all, of their state primary friends. Though my son, now at university, spends more time with state school people than private, which pleases me.

Another con is that a few of the private school teachers aren't that brilliant. In some subject areas they don't actually have to do too much teaching, if a class is full of clever and motivated pupils; this small section of teachers can basically just set exercises in class and homework and mark them. We didn't come across too many of these, though.

I'm sure you have previously described having to go into your dss' state primary, happygardening, to try and sort things out for your dss, before you gave up and paid for a private prep school in order to avoid the stress. So it's a bit of a fib to claim you believe in hands off parenting. You have just found a way to not have to keep going in to complain... If you couldn't have afforded it, I suspect you would still be trying to bang your head against a brick wall/would have caved in from the stress/would have found something slightly more acceptable...

Even if I were to undergo a massive personality change and suddenly want tp become in school life, I know from on here that what Inthink makes a first class education is not what many others thinks makes one.
Secondly as a public sector worker myself I can tell you that you can tinker round the edges with things but major decisions are made by some pen pusher in an office and disseminated down to the work force, the sort of changes I would like to make to education are not permissible or what many want.

round I very much doubt they have less time than we do, not sure about capacity as I'm not sure what you mean by capacity? Do you mean mental capacity, that's a bit patronising or physical capacity i.e. availability if the latter again I doubt they have less physical capacity than we have.

Oh God where are my glasses!
Start again I call this hands off parenting, others call it lazy parenting or even neglectful parenting frankly I don't care.

And it is not always the interfering parents who have the most intelligent things to say.

And therein lies the problem: poor, uneducated parents have even less time and capacity than you do.

Typo:
Frankly I don't care.

Even if I had some "magic dust" to sprinkle around which I don't I wouldn't want to spend my limited time doing it. Both my DH and I have mentally very demanding jobs, and we work long hours and in our limited spare time we like to do things that we enjoy, we're lucky in that our jobs pay us enough to enable us to pay school fees and therefore we don't have spend manning teddy bear stalls or accosting hear masters to improve standards.
We've found that paying means that any problems he may have (which are few and far between) are sorted out by someone else the most taxing thing I have to do is send an email. I call this hangs off parenting, you others call it lazy parenting or even neglectful parents frankly I care.

Well, you could look at it this way: if state school standards/offerings bother you enough that you are willing to fork out huge sums of money in order to avoid them/get something else, then it seems likely that you are far more opinionated than average and if otherwise unable to get what you want, might well be more willing than most to express those opinions to the school you are stuck with and try to change what they do! I seldom hear people justify using a private school because they just decided to on a whim, or because it was easier to get to - they are always willing to give a huge number of opinions on why they feel their chosen school offers a superior education for their child!

Nobody ever explains what these parents would actually be doing in their "pushing the local state school to drive up standards". It always strikes me as horribly insulting to the other parents, and even more to the teachers, that people would assume I had some magic dust I could sprinkle over my local state school if only I would.

I agree, callmeacynic. What are these miracles that private school parents can perform which are, for some reason, beyond the capabilities of the teachers and parents at state school? Very patronising.

It was definitely not cool to be bright when I was at school! The cool kids had musicians or actors as parents, the pretty ones, then an international jet set life style, then the assisted places kids (don't assume they were particularly bright on account of their scholarships aged 11), the children of politicians.

The bright ones were just geeks, who refused to cut class to smoke on the hockey pitch.

And yes the bullying was awful. By the pretty ones of the ugly ones mostly.

Also massive rich/poor divide. They divided is into classes depending on where we lived. The 'Kensington class' were massively dismissive of the 'sheen' class and treated them (the more ethnically diverse class) as hugely inferior.

Heh. And I wonder why I'm not sending mine private! I appreciate that was just my experience tho

I went to an all-girls independent school, but my dd is at a local Outstanding co-ed comp. This obtains similar academic results to many independent schools and does value both academic (and other e.g. sport and music) achievement and doesn't have significant problems with behaviour.
Independent schooling has become far less affordable than it was a few years ago, so many parents are in a similar position to you and have opted for state education.
I would recommend talking to parents with older children and find out a bit more about what the state schools local to you are actually like.
If we had wanted single sex, the only option locally would have been an independent school, but otherwise there are many excellent state schools.
Agree with previous poster there can be bullying in the independent sector too so some factors mentioned depend on the individual school rather than the type of school it is.

The small classes is a bit of a red herring at secondary, certainly where we are (London). Our local boys' state has a cap of 25 per class, the independent where our eldest goes has 24 in a class.

I'm like Saffy, an angst-ridden hypocrite. For us, state was the ideal but since we could comfortably afford secondary we went to visit a few. The selective, prestigious, historic, blah-di-blah secondary that he's ended up in feels like a safer bet though I do suspect that he'd ultimately do as well elsewhere.

In comparison to his friends at local states, the benefits are: much better sport: less churn with teachers; a faster pace (by dint of being selective, rather than better teaching); much more responsive to any difficulties he's had (which tended to be ignored at primary since his problems were v minor in comparison to some children, through no fault of their own); wider pool to fish friends from. Oh and less homework, surprisingly, but to me that's a good thing as he's exhausted.

Disadvantages: cost; longer travel; much less diverse in every single way; my mortification at being horrid stinking hypocrite.

Same area as twowrongs where the state schools are the holy grail and the vast majority of parents have them as their first choice irrespective of income. There is a choice of Co - ed grammars or single sex grammars and the ethos of achievement is definitely present.

I agree with a previous poster that generalisations about disruption / badly behaved pupils in state schools is inappropriate. For what it's worth, my H went to a well regarded independent and hated it. He was bullied and in his view the smaller class meant there wasn't a breadth of friendship groups.

So it really is about the individual schools you have on offer and the child.

Went to state school myself, but send DD to private prep and assume she will continue into 2ndary private too. For us the advantage of a private school is the attention she gets, it's "cool" to be bright (which she is), more choice - sports, music, science equipment, computer stuff etc. It doesn't suit everyone, but I will walk over hot coals rather than send her to our local state 2ndary which is just awful, and where she would have to go if we didn't pay. BUT agree entirely with everyone else - each child is different and if our state schools were better we might have made an entirely different choice.

Dn attended independent schools from the start. The disadvantages for him I would say was that there were SEN that would have been better catered for in a state school. (SIL pulled him out of state in nursery when they asked for him to see an ed psych) He was always bottom of the class which did nothing for his self confidence.There were limited friendship opportunities because of small classes and as he was neither academically able nor sporty he didn't bond with his peers who were. He is very limited socially even now at 26 because his classmates went to uni and then made lives for themselves and he lacked the confidence or skills to make friendships and a life for himself. The school didn't seem to prepare him for life outside school if university wasn't an option and perhaps weren't fully honest about his abilities. SIL was checking out RG unis when it was obvious he would struggle to get A levels although SIL is deluded so might have only heard what she wanted to anyway.
The advantages would be that they managed to ensure he got a few GCSE's and scraped a couple of A2's.He wouldn't have made the requirements for sixth form in state so it wouldn't have been an option. He would have floundered in a class of 30 and would probably have been a target for bullies because of his appearance and his manner. The school's connections secured him an apprenticeship and he's still there all be it on NMW.

I think if you can afford the fees then you need to take that out of the equation. Forget you are paying and look at each school your child could feasibly get in to and decide which is best for your child. We came down to 3 schools we would have been happy for DS1 to go to.

We didn't get our first choice state school, but did get our second choice school which would have been fine, we liked it and DS1 would have done well there. However, the private school did pip it to the post on its ethos of respect and discipline which we felt would benefit DS1. It also has smaller class sizes and larger grounds but not particularly better facilities as it's not a rich school by any means. It also has a real cross section of pupils which we liked. Funnily enough the state school intake was probably a narrower cross section of society.

Nobody ever explains what these parents would actually be doing in their "pushing the local state school to drive up standards". It always strikes me as horribly insulting to the other parents, and even more to the teachers, that people would assume I had some magic dust I could sprinkle over my local state school if only I would.

Most state secondary schools are not actually scary, btw! Sometimes when the unknown becomes known it is perfectly agreeable. I would say the worst reason for spending lots of money on a private education would be fear of the unknown. Do your research, think hard about what is important to you and your child and choose the best realistic fit. Also, remember that what looks good in a prospectus is not always best in real life.

I neither found serious low level disruption to be a feature of my state school experience, nor the denigration of academic achievement. I find sweeping generalisations to be mildly offensive and unhelpful. Look at what is on offer and use your own judgement to fit your very particular circumstances, rather than hoping other peoples' experiences of different families, different children and different schools will do anything more than reinforce your own pre-existing, unsubstantiated fears.

When we were looking at schools for Ds1 we had a choice of crappy catchment school, nearer bigger good comp, local outstanding grammar, top 10 in country grammar or within walking distance private.

Due to bursaries the cost of private or transport to best grammar was the same. We chose grammar.

Ds2 is thriving at the non catchment comp.

We went for the school we thought was most suitable for each child and as they are both happy I think our approach has been a good one for us.
Still have Dd to go though...

Saffynool, I will admit that the hypocrisy can work both ways - I can find myself pontificating on the merits of state schools and forget that not everyone has access to an Outstanding comp as we did. Although I do think Grange Hill Nightmare Academies are less common than they were.

"and say that my principles went out of the window when it came to secondary education for my pfb!"

As such a high percentage of people who may be in a position to lobby for and support change in the state sector do the same, the unfairness and inequality of our education system will remain entrenched.

I'm not sure that those who gain a competitive advantage from this state of affairs have any motivation to actually challenge the current set up.

My dc go to a private secondary school and I work in one of the (average) state school that I might have chosen (although we were returning from overseas and were only offered the lowest achieving school in the area. So private it was).

One of the worst things I see at my state school is the constant disruption to lessons by a small proportion of the children, which the teacher has to spend a large amount of time dealing with. It seems to be an accepted part of school life. I really feel for the students who do want to work, as it's very hard for them to concentrate and get any help they need from the teacher.

I've spoken to my dc about this and they've informed me that this never happens at their school. The culture is very much geared to working hard and achieving. The work they do and the homework they get is of a much higher level than the equivalent years in the state school. I never really understand when people say that children in private school are being 'spoon fed' as mine work really hard and are very independent learners, more so than in the state school where a lot of work the children do seems to be filling in sheets or online work, rather than essays or projects.

I've not regretted going down the private route.