If you were privately educated, are your children?

[roarfeckingroarr]

And if they aren't, do you feel guilty? Was it a moral choice or a financial one?

I had a wonderful experience of private education. I was very very lucky. I always intended to give my children the same opportunities. Now I have a toddler and I'm pregnant, I just don't know if I can afford it and I feel huge guilt. I probably could, just, if we pulled back on everything else.

Argh.

Please don't turn into a private school bashing thread.

@Callimanco so you don’t think smaller class sizes, one on one SEN support benefits SEN kids? I specifically kept my oldest in private because they’ve always understood her needs!

Our independent school has loads of very high achieving SEN kids.

I was Privately educated on a 100% academic scholarship but DH went to State school. We didn’t consider Private Primary because local State Provision is good and DH was in fact quite anti Private school - said there was no need as he had done well etc.
However, when DD was 10 and we started looking at Secondary options I persuaded him to go to 2 Private schools as well as the local State ones. After a visit to one Private school he said “if you can afford it why wouldn’t you send your child here?”
His State Secondary had been a pretty good one (had converted from Grammar a few years before he went) and I don’t think he realised how stark the differences were between the schools we could access (I know there are some great State Secondaries but our local 2 aren’t)
If the DC hadn’t been able to go Private I suppose we would have just had to accept it and try and help them as much as we could, engaged parents do make a HUGE difference as well.

I was the whole way through. DH went to boarding Prep School at 7, left after 2 terms as he was understandably homesick, to this day is adamant the school was a happy one but he was too young. He then went to state school until 13 and boarded again, which he loved. My children have been privately educated since the age of 4, eldest is now at Uni and youngest in U6th. For me the best money we have ever spent. We aren’t particularly high earners, don’t live in a large house and don’t drive flash cars. Live within our means and the children appreciate the sacrifice.

I don't think the additional academic pressures in the local independent schools near us would have benefitted my kids, no. My eldest would have been asked to leave for "refusing" to work (actually severe anxiety causing a freeze response). My second would not have got in, and if he did, would have thought himself an idiot - he is actually a highly creative person who is chronically disorganized and does poorly in exams, now thriving on a creative course at uni. My youngest would have been fine actually, but he's on track for 8s and 9s and very happy in the local school.

I work in SEND and am aware that independent schools don't have to follow the code of practice. We only have one non- competitive indie secondary a half hour drive or so away, and I am familiar with it and don't rate it much.

@Kfjsjdbd at our selective independent we have loads of SEN kids. Are you unaware that many ADHD and ASD kids are actually more high achieving than the average even within their selective school?

I was from 4 to 18.

My DC aren’t as I simply can’t afford it. The fees are astronomical for two children. As a household we earn 100k both working full time but certainly don’t have money to spare at the end of each month. While we own a house we brought badly at the wrong time so haven’t been able to progress up the ladder so to speak and can’t really afford to move which would be my priority.

The children go to a lovely small primary school although it has a poor ofsted. I would love to send them to a private secondary but it just isn’t feasible.

DappledThings thank you for answering my question. I understand now.

Yes and yes. I went on a full assissted place. DH was state educated outside the UK. We can comfortably afford the fees. The state schools around us are good and given our financial position I would feel guilty if we didn’t pay, but I don’t think they’d go if we had to penny watch.

Live within our means and the children appreciate the sacrifice.

This reminds me a bit of my DM, who also made sacrifices to send us to private school and expects us to be grateful. It's made me think about how important it is - if you are lucky enough to have a choice - to be open to all the possibilities and really consider what might suit the child. I think people do tend to do this now, but DM was of the opinion that if you have to pay for it, it must be better, and we all ended up in schools that superficially looked good on paper and had all the bells and whistles you would hope for, but ultimately weren't right for us.

Among the four of us there are only two graduates (disappointing!) and no multi-millionaires (even more disappointing!) and probably one career she is satisfied with. But we do have one prison sentence, two suicide attempts, one erstwhile drug addict, one functioning alcoholic, one expulsion from school, two suspensions and one victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a prep school teacher. So we don't feel grateful, DM is disappointed in us for the poor return on their investment, none of us is close to our parents, it's really damaged our family. Such a tricky business, education.

I did until I was 11, but then went to a grammar.

And now my dc go to a failing school in a deprived area.

I’m broke. We are trying to get out of this area but it’s an impossible struggle. It makes me feel like shit. I wasn’t actually very bright but my daughter is very talented academically and it makes me so sad to know how well she could be doing.

(My parents were okay money wise, then one died when I was a child and the other ones mental health which was never great plummeted so my life also went down hill with theirs and I had to leave school early to care for them and then work any job).

I went to one of the best private schools in the country (as did DH). I now teach in a state school. Having been in the unusual position of being able to accurately compare the two, I will now very happily send my children to state school, even though we are fortunate enough to be able to afford private for all of them.

If I had never left that 'private school bubble' and not spent my working life in different state schools then I would never have felt 'brave' enough to trust sending my children to state school. I have however selected where we live incredibly carefully so they're in catchment for some of the best state schools in our part of the country - and I'm aware this is a less extreme version of selection but selection in a way nevertheless.

Unless it's a top 10 in the country private school ( academically speaking) then in my opinion they're a waste of money now in comparison to some of the outstanding state schools.

In addition, I now realise that the best of students with supportive parents will do just as well academically in an outstanding state school then they would have done in a private school, but in my experience they have a better chance of avoiding certain mental health issues.

Eating disorders for instance were absolutely rife in my highly academic selective private school. We had at least one student hospitalised per year every year just in our year group (and keep in mind that private school year groups are smaller).

Yes, 25% of our cohort went to oxbridge and 30% went to medical school, but oh my gosh the number of my peers who still have awful mental health problems or who completely crashed and burned at uni was staggering.

At some of the state schools I've worked in we still get the most academic students into oxbridge, medicine etc, and students have issues with mental health still, but the comparison seems massive with students seeming to be far more resilient and well balanced coming out of secondary state school.

All of that said, if I lived in an area where all the state schools were shocking and there were good private schools around (because some private schools can be pretty shocking too) then there's no question that I would either move areas or send my children private.

And its interesting to see our grown up friends starting to send their children to private school, or planning to when they reach that age, because they don't know any different, even when they live in areas with fantastic private schools. Many of them will be barely able to scrape the astronomical fees- I just feel for them but completely understand why if private schools are all you've ever known why it would feel too 'risky' to go state.

*areas with fantastic state schools

DH went to very expensive private school, boarding from age 9. I was entirely state school educated.

Our 5 DC have all been state school educated, but we have always been lucky with the schools where we live: they have been highly rated and performed well. If that hadn't been the case we'd have gone down the private route.

I taught at a private primary school for a while; it was lovely. I wanted two of my daughters to attend my school, but they insisted they wanted to stay at the village primary where they were happy and had lots of friends. My school was far better academically, but these other factors are very important, too.

If we'd been going it all again now, with funding crisis in state education then we'd far more likely have chosen private schools from the beginning.

I went to a good grammar school so no, but when it came to choosing a senior school for DS, I wanted at least as good for him. The local comprehensive was not good, so I put ds forward for a scholarship at the local independent which he won.

I felt if I couldn't offer him at least as good as I had, I'd be failing him, and I don't want to spend the next 40 years feeling like that. Even if it costs me every spare penny.

I was privately educated. So is my DS.

Dp was, sent away to boarding school, his DD's went to state school - he did look at a private school but it wasn't a good fit and dsd wasn't keen, it would have been affordable with sacrifices, they chose to spend the money on other things. I was state educated, one of my DD's boarded on a scholarship and wish dd1 could have too

I went to State for primary and then Private for secondary. DH was State all the way through.
I loved my school days and would have loved for DC to have the same. They both went Private for primary because the local school wasn't inspiring and I decided to work on the Jesuit principle ("Give me a child till he is seven years old and I will show you the man"). The school that DD went to wasn't amazing; we seem to have a knack of choosing schools on past reputation which tanks when we join! DS's was much better, as is the way of things - the old, established (boys', natch) schools tend to do better.

With the ramp up of fees for secondary we decided to go State. It helped that it was the time when Tony Blair was throwing money at education.
Luckily, the gamble paid off and they both did OK academically although neither are particularly ambitious or driven as regards careers.

If I was to have my time over again, I would have prioritised buying a house in a better catchment,.although with our track record we probably would have jinxed it.

With education I think it is important to remember: that was then, this is now. Don't make decisions based on your own childhood of a generation ago.

I went to private school.
I hated not having local friends.
I hated the pressurised environment which left me with massive self confidence issues.
I hated the snobbiness that the private school children thought they were better than everyone else and being removed from "the real world".
I hated being reminded what my parents had sacrificed to send me there.

My children go to the local comp and are a million times happier than I ever was.

Don't make decisions based on your own childhood of a generation ago.

Unless the reasons for choosing one or the other are still the same, eg those who want DC to grow up in a more socially diverse environment.

There are so many variables and what suits one child may not suit another. Some people on this thread are talking about their bad experiences at private school. My experience at comprehensive was horrific and ultimately resulted in me trying to commit suicide. It definitely wasn’t the right school for me but my brother was fine there.

Likewise, people are advocating the state system for their children because of diversity. However, our local state primary and secondary schools are not diverse at all. 99.9% white British and it’s a pretty affluent village so there’s little social diversity either. That’s one of the reasons that I chose to send my DC’s to a private prep in the nearest large town as it’s far more diverse. One is now at a super selective state grammar and it’s far, far more diverse than our local secondary. Less than 50% of DC’s year are white British.

I was private all the way through but my partner was state. We're intending to send ours to an excellent private primary. It's posher than where I went but I want them to have the support to learn at their own rate. Talking to friends and family, it seems that clever kids in state primarys are often bored as teaching is aimed at the less academic kids. Which is fair enough, but I want my kids to love school like I did. The school we're going to send them to sets kids from year 3 so they can go at their own pace. It'll be a sacrifice money wise but we're happy with that. My parents similarly sacrificed for my private education and we all agree it was totally worth it as i loved every minute. I'm not particularly interested in second homes, posh holidays and new cars.

I wasn’t privately educated but my husband was. Our kids aren’t privately educated. I am better educated than my husband and his privately educated siblings so it didn’t advantage them really, but also I’m more intelligent than them.

most privately educated people I know haven’t privately educated their kids either because they weren’t that impressed with their own education and think it’s a waste of money or they can’t afford it, as it seems proportionately much more expensive these days.

Brother, sister and I all privately educated from 4 - 18. All of us have sent our children to state schools including, in one case, schools that became Required Improvement while they were there.

All our children have gone to Russell Group unis, two have gone to Oxbridge.

Zero regrets for any of us.