Secondary decision: conversation re private vs state?

@SJaneS49 I understand what you are saying and that the world in this respect is far from perfect, especially in working environments. My comments were more an aspiration, in the meantime we all need to work with the tools or access we have, however limited.

Separately, good luck OP and I am sure your boys will continue to do well in secondary school!

(Apologies to the OP, as this is going off thread & I’m not going to comment further on this). @Coronateachingagain “ your decisions on recruiting should be based on neither positive nor negative discrimination.”.

For a start, it’s my job to provide the best talent to any operation regardless of gender, class, sexuality or race. If however the business has a preponderance of let’s say four toed lemurs and I’m told they have a very strong preference to address this by recruiting a two toed lemur into the role and they state that they will make concessions on experience to get a two toed lemur (and in reality, while they may not say it, it’s unlikely they will appoint anything but a two toed lemur), it becomes part of my job to proactively find two toed lemurs and ensure my final list of lemurs includes a number of appropriately skilled two toed as well as four toed applicants. The final choice between the lemurs and which one is right for the business is entirely up to the business, not me.

On a personal level, I dislike DI questionnaires, they are discriminatory in themselves. I intensely dislike DI briefs that involve me in proactive headhunting activity such as going through LinkedIn focusing on race. Going forward, if more investment was made into attracting wider talent pools at ground level and properly developing and mentoring that talent (as well as being flexible on working arrangements for parents and carers), there will be far less need to address DI issues.

Excuse me as I’ve just woken up and I’m quite sure I could have put this all a lot more coherently (especially when it came to lemurs!). It’s off the OP’s topic, I don’t plan to say anything more on this and would suggest that if anyone does they create a separate thread (as I’m sure this one could run and run!).

Agree with everything @Liam436 said
Save your money, stick to state schools

We made the choice based on the friends group. Most of them had way back suggested they may go private but various marriage breakups etc and the kids themselves put paid to that. Mine wanted to go with their friends. They go to a school I had serious misgivings about but they all doing well mine on track for 5 A band a levels. One parent felt her child didn’t fit so made the choice to go private after a year. So you can always go private. Others have used the money for tutors etc nothing is set in stone.

[quote SJaneS49]@merryhouse, I can believe it! People hate DI questionnaires & are suspicious of them for all kinds of reasons.[/quote]
Well it should be blind to any background or circumstance to start with. That is safer than answering to some of the questions above. It should not even be a point of discussion, as someone implied, more information is sometimes dangerous. You can as that for stats but then your decisions on recruiting should be based on neither positive nor negative discrimination.

@merryhouse, I can believe it! People hate DI questionnaires & are suspicious of them for all kinds of reasons.

@SJaneS49 [diversity work] starts off with a questionnaire - ‘are you the first person in your family to go to university’ and ‘were you primarily state or privately educated’ are two of the first questions.

and then you get people starting threads on Mumsnet complaining that the application form asked them about their background and how can an employer possibly justify discriminating against them just because their parents had menial jobs...

(true story, couple of months ago. Took quite some patient - not from me - explanation before the poster grasped what was going on)

Bristol didn’t for our state schools I’m afraid. Not a hope

Dh and I both were state school (rural comps) educated and ended up with top city jobs (dh via Cambridge). Our dc both at an excellent state school. Really don’t see what a private education would bring to the party unless the state option dire.

You do not need higher grades to go to Uni from a private school. That is a myth I'm afraid. A few under performing state schools get contextual offers, as do some disadvantaged students. But the vast majority of state school students need to get exactly the same grades as their private counterparts.

I wouldn’t do it. If you have a good state school, send them there.

Kids from private schools now have to get higher grades to be given the same we university offers, a lot of businesses in the city are under pressure to publish statistics on the background of the candidates and employees. Same for civil service.

In essence, it’s not a Maoist revolution, but the advantages of a private school education are being priced in so to speak. Like a golf handicap. You are spending quite a lot of money to tread water or even disadvantage your child in some ways.

Take no notice, if your boys are bright and motivated they will do perfectly well in a good state school. FWIW I'm a teacher who has worked in a a couple of good comps and a couple of private schools over the last 2 years. I'd hands down send my own kids to a good state comprehensive.

Bloody hell ...she's not a friend
If the state secondary is good ...use it ..your boys will excel if they are meant to excel
Private is all well and good if you can comfortably afford it ...down sizing etc etc seems a bit OTT to me ...but as you said personal choice
I work in a private school ...2-13 yrs old ...plus I went to private secondary myself ....do not underestimate the costs involved .

Poodles excellent news. As I said before, we had a similar situation. Dd is from working class/middle class parents and got 2 A stars and an A at A Level (and an A in EPQ). No extra tutition. From a good state school similar to what you are describing.
It is a bit unnerving when friends do that though. To be honest it took a couple of years to settle (and listening to how fantastic the private school was) before all the parents could just go back to normal in the pub again. The kids were fine at first but got a bit more distant as time went on.
Again, just my experience, but the rudest prats at Dds school tend to be the middle class/upper middle class with lots of expendable cash to flash.

I think people who feel unsure of their own decision often try to validate it by seeking to “convert” their friends to their view. If your friend was 100% happy with the decision she has made she wouldn’t have made those comments and tried to convert you to her view. If you keep seeing her the kind way to deal with her is just to say something like- “well I can see that works for you and my decision works for us” and try not to engage because she will probably spend the next five years of friendship continually trying to “convert” you...

There is some huge stereotyping going on in this thread (which tends to happen on Private v State threads). For a start, the in take of State’s - depending on the area, they are likely to have a pretty large cohort of children who have Middle class backgrounds. Where we live (an admittedly wealthy area in the South East), I’d say that children from middle class families definetely outweigh those from working class at my DD2’s State school.

Whether State educated DC are at disadvantage is a different conversation to whether working class DC are at a disadvantage ... because they are not inherently one and the same. And again, it will really depend on which State and which Private - these blanket statements are just silly. A working class DC who has gone to a great State, had lots of encouragement from their parents (the previous comment about working class parents not encouraging their children is ridiculous), gone to a good University and got a good class of degree these days is not necessarily bottom of the pile at all.

I’ve done quite a lot of graduate recruiting. Do the majority of employers (outside of elitist financial services companies in the City) really care that much about which school someone went too or what class they come from? Er, no. Personality, charisma, work placements, evidenced interest, class of degree, decent University - these are what are important and these are certainly NOT exclusive to the middle and upper classes. And these days the old school bastions which used to pretty exclusively recruit a public school cohort now take from outside of that - my State educated niece was part of the Foreign Office’s graduate intake 2 years ago.

In the last year what we have seen in recruiting is Diversity and Inclusion come to the forefront. I work with a huge & very well known Financial Services Institution wanting to really move away from its white, privately educated, straight and male in take. This starts off with a questionnaire - ‘are you the first person in your family to go to university’ and ‘were you primarily state or privately educated’ are two of the first questions.

Natalia I think you tagged me by mistake.

@Zandathepanda contextual offers for university are only for children in schools which don’t have a history of children going on to further education or if they live in certain postcodes. In fact as far as I am aware, private school children who might live in the selected post codes are eligible for the contextual offers too

My own children school doesn’t qualify for contextual. Neither does our home postcode and neither do they have qualify for the other criteria which include things like being first in the family to go to university. So my son and his friends from his state school are sitting on the bog standard offers which for him a AAA or AAB for his backup, exactly the same as his private school friends