Private school or £250k house deposit......

[JanieBP]

For your child. Just that really. DH calculated that to send our DC the whole way through private school will be £250k EACH (including fee increases etc....they are at a private school now, but we are reconsidering). Even the most modest private secondary education is going to set you back £60k per child. Yet almost everyone I meet who went to a private school can’t afford to send their own child privately (well not without significant grandparent help). One dad said to me his aim was to make ‘happy adults’. Doesn’t every parent want happy children- Even grown up ones? As adults if they can afford to get on the property ladder and have a secure home that might make them happier than being able to reminisce about the school play, school cricket matches and match tea.......

I'd pay for the best secondary private school you can afford. Private primary isn't essential.

This is a fine example of nicer problems to have.

It is sad that such inequality exists for children in the UK.

And if two candidates have similar grades and one is from a privileged background, the applicant from less privileged background is automatically better because their start line was far behind the other candidate

So many blind assumptions. How would you ever know whether or not a DC was “privileged” or not on the basis of their school alone?

To make a decision like this without risk of serious injustice, you would need an in depth investigation into each DC’s home life, mental health, money spent on tutors, extra curricular activities and quality of teachers etc.

@MrsBobDylan

This is a fine example of nicer problems to have.

It is sad that such inequality exists for children in the UK.

True

To make a decision like this without risk of serious injustice, you would need an in depth investigation into each DC’s home life, mental health, money spent on tutors, extra curricular activities and quality of teachers etc.
That is a risk you have to take. It’s like every other part of our life. We look at the trend in data and decide on that basis. There may be exceptions but, like I said before, I have seen few exceptions in my 20 yr long career so far. Safe to say there is a reason universities are taking this risk. To stay at the forefront of innovation, we do need the best and best doesn’t equal best grades only.

House deposit. It will produce a real return. As for school fees, if your DC are really bright they will come to the fore regardless of the school (unless it is a total "sink", of course), plus have you factored in all the "extras" when calculating the fees. A "good" private school can turn anything from school trips to having bottled water at lunch into an "extra".

@DontStopThinkingAboutTomorrow. You can start medical school at 17 (in Scotland at least)and finish at 22. You couldn’t be a dr at 21.

@Bluntness100
Give a man a fish you feed him for a day
Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime
Giving your kids the best education you can afford is the latter.

Not if they choose nursing......or any other number of not well paid careers. Between my DMs neighbours There are 7 privately educated adult children. None of them earn over £25k and only one of them owns a house (largely paid for by daddy).

@gongy

Now probably the youngest GP in the country and very happy.

There's been a few 21 yr old doctors I've read about, seems so young!

She had to do two years Foundation training and three GP training after graduating in medicine. Not a 21 year old GP. That isn’t posting UK.

@MrsMiaWallis, asking because current private school def isn’t worth it. Our options are to move to another private (and I’ve really lost faith tbh) or an outstanding primary and then reconsider for secondary.

Sorry not possible in U.K.

As an immigrant, I really value education above all else. Where I’m from, the state provision is so dire that most pay for private education without question. Hence why I’ve never quite understood the hand wringing sending your child to private schooling seems to elicit. As a parent you’d give your child the best opportunity you possibly can to thrive. Future earnings, opportunity to network didn’t factor into the decision to send dc to prep. Dc’s happiness really comes first at this stage. Hence why I have one in prep and another in state primary with a weekly tutor. Truth be told, I wish they’d agree to move to the prep also, it’d certainly make my life easier! The biggest difference in our case is the ability of the prep to really spend time dc individually. The expectations are set far higher in terms of attainment as are the soft skills, which they just don’t teach at state.

With some planing you can do both. Buy a property investment which’ll pay for school fees. Refinance or sell it to release equity for a house deposit when dc are in their 20’s.

@CherryPavlova That isn’t posting UK.

What do you mean?

Well someone needs to tell this guy

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/life-frontline-pandemic-uks-youngest-18472066.amp

Or her

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1290155/Britains-youngest-doctor-On-wards-just-21.html

We'll be sending DD to private school. I'm a bit jaded as I had a terrible state education and so did my nieces (i.e. recent experience). I know that there are many excellent state schools out there, but not in areas that I want to move to, for various reasons. Plus we can afford private school comfortably (and are in the privileged positon of being able to help out with housing too, so it's not an either/or choice for us).

If I was in the hypothetical position of having to make the choice between private school/house deposit, I'd probably spend the money moving house to the catchment of the best state schools (one that has consistently good results for decades is likely to maintain that reputation). A house would probably increase value in that area, so you could downsize when they have finished schooling and release money to help with a house deposit.

[quote JanieBP]@MrsMiaWallis, asking because current private school def isn’t worth it. Our options are to move to another private (and I’ve really lost faith tbh) or an outstanding primary and then reconsider for secondary.[/quote]
Primary? I don't think twiddly preps are worth it. Primary education is generally very good. Mine all went to state primary then very good private secondary. It's worked well.

Primary STATE education is generally very good.

@MrsMiaWallis

Primary STATE education is generally very good.

Depends what you want from them. I would disagree if you want more than phonics being the focus for the first 2 years and SATs prep being the focus at the other end.

Space it's a complicated matter, but so is the British (English?) relationship with education. For me private school was a purely practical decision (meant we could choose, instead of being at the mercy of a state system that had run out of places locally, plus prioritise wrap around care) and working in one is also practical (higher pay and fewer students - huge difference to my quality of life). A lot of the hand-wringing I suspect is from people who did have reasonable state school places available locally and who have sufficient resources to make up for the rising pupil-teacher ratio. My last year in state, there were 27 kids in one of my A-level classes - when I was at school it was around half that. People will say class size makes no difference, but it certainly does to the teacher. It gets to the stage that if you want to sleep at all, you can only glance at essays.

It's not surprising that the brightest and most committed and supported progress to great things from the state system. Firstly, there are many more of them and secondly, who doesn't love a self-motivated student when you've got 50 others to get through A-level?

My granny who was a housemaid always said the one thing no one can ever take away from you is an education.

I want my kids to be able to make the best of themselves and their own way in the world. Depending on your local schools I think education is the best way to do that.

[quote gongy]**@CherryPavlova* That isn’t posting UK.*

What do you mean? [/quote]
I corrected later. Automatic correction on iPad. I meant it’s not possible to be a GP at 21 in the U.K.

But it is?

I linked to 2 articles

I think it takes about 10 years to train as a GP in the UK.

5 years of med school, a couple of years experience at Foundation Stage then 3 years of the GP training.