Nearly £9000 more spent on private secondary pupils than state pupils

[SluggyMuggy]

Research from University College London that found £12,200 a year is the average spending on a privately educated primary pupil, compared with £4,800 on a state pupil. For secondary, it’s £15,000 compared with £6,200.

This entrenches inequality as private pupils are given far more resources towards their education.

I have 4 DC so mine went to Catholic school :)

I'm in that cohort. It was (and is) important to me. He's not a basket to put eggs in though!!

But he does have access to great facilities, loads of opportunities to discover what his passions are, and I'll be happy if he just does his best.

I agree with everyone that all children should have access to great schools, but me sending my child to private school won't change the government not investing enough in the state system. If I needed to have an operation I'd skimp and save to go private if it was necessary. That's the same way I view private education. And I'm able to- so I did. I haven't taken a place off anyone else to do so- so I'm not sure where this politics of envy comes from. We don't seem to have the same outlook on people who opt for private medical care.

Well said. We also don't take the same view of people who deliberately buy or rent property in the catchment area of a good state school.

They are in two schools near me!

This is all a bit stupid.
Like saying £8k holiday costs £6k more than a £2k holiday, and there’s clearly a gap.
Is the Pope a catholic?

What on earth do you mean by this remark?

Paying for private education most certainly doesn’t ensure their children are well off , they’ll still need to work hard and have a good work ethic

“Is the Pope a catholic?”

You’d be surprised… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism

Look these days anyone can find a belief and spin it somehow and get some followers online and use “language”/semantics to their advantage.

Both sides of the argument are not great: “politics of envy” (when really it is more ignorance) vs “purchasing inequality”, tax loopholes, apparently levying VAT on private school fees is not “taxing education” etc.

Private and state school is not binary as such. People need to understand that first.
I do not think that gaslighting private school parents is a wise move, far from it.

You're not seeing the wider picture. The gap between state and private funding of students has doubled over the last ten years. It's not just that those who pay more get more spent on their kids (a trivial point) but that on a country-wide level the distance is widening.

I think your ire is misdirected op.

If we want state schools to perform better, let’s address that - money, facilities, specialist provision, pupil engagement. Why get mad at parents who effectively contribute to both ?

Full disclosure : no dc; state educated; my skin in this game is a desire to see the UK as a whole have better facilities for all.

Exactly, it’s the lack of funding for the state that is a problem, not the fact that some people pay ever more towards their own child’s education.

@mossylog Course we're seeing the bigger picture. The tories haven't funded state education (or healthcare or anything else) properly and have in fact decimated it so the gap between rich and poor is worse than ever. On what planet is this a revelation?

I think the point is that even if private schools are spending 100k per child, there is an optimum spend where a child has a good experience and a good academic outcome. Even if private schools spend on unicorns how is that actually relevant to what we need 94% of children to achieve?
Shoving all children into a one size fits all regardless of SEN and home based trauma and poverty is not going to bring out the best in each child. Even the top performers will suffer, even though their parents are plugging the gaps. Putting every increasing pressure on teachers to deliver a one size fits all to negate the actual fundamental inequalities in society achieves nothing either.

So, private school is just an experience and not an investment in the future for him? You've given up additional children and he doesn't have siblings, so that he can have a nicer/ happier time while at school? I mean, I get half of MN would have given up a sibling for a pony or just a big yellow teapot, but that is some commitment to the value of private schooling in and of itself before you even get to the expense.

As for the other stuff, I don't know if that's directed at me or just the conversation more generally, but I'm perfectly at ease with the principles around private schooling and agree that state school should be better provided for.

One way of doing it would be to channel more “benefits” into schools so the teachers pass them directly to children via food, longer school hours, safe spaces, rather than giving them to the parents.

Re: support dogs. I hope my dc's school don't bring this in, he's allergic and it's a trigger for his asthma.

@SluggyMuggy
You do accept surely that some people have more money than others yes?
And that those people will use that money on things they want yes?
And that healthcare and their dc are probably the most valuable thing they could spend their money on yes?

Well no matter how much more money is spent on state funded education and healthcare there will always be more that could be available if there was the means to pay. You are being kind of ridiculous thinking people with more money won't have better things.

It shows that the government was giving the same funding to state schools as private schools where charging back in 1983. So you could probably get a really good state education back then.

Unfortunately the gap keeps growing and budgets in state schools haven't gone up in real terms at all.

For example I work as a science technician in a state school, in the last 7 years our budget for the department hasn't gone up at all. Yet the cost of resources and equipment has gone up substantially, so we have in effect seen budget cuts really. I am wondering if we'll be able to afford anything other then books and photocopying in a couple of years. Although with the increased cost of paper many schools are now giving out tablets instead as its working out cheaper and banning all printing at the same time.

This entrenches inequality as private pupils are given far more resources towards their education.

Given? Parents pay for it.

The point is there are more people with the same amount of money as many private school parents who choose to spend their money elsewhere.
Are they still wealthy?
These people with the same money that choose to go abroad's every year and change their car every 5 years and can't therefore afford to send their ex to private schools. Do you see them as privileged?

I'm not sure how that would work. Many people with children in state school operate between benefits and sending their children to be privately educated. Your plan would take resources for children with parents who are financially pinched and redistributing them to the benefit of everyone. I'd benefit but it'd be a bit shit.

Of course they won't, if you've got 3 kids in a secondary that's costing £10k+ term/ total of at least £90k pa for all of them... (Not including trips, exam frees, music lessons etc) So realising £100k+.

Then they're not going to pull out because they now need to find an extra (max) 20% on fees they (It probably won't out even come to +20% anyway!) they'll easily find £110k+

This in a nutshell. I can count on one hand the number of ‘troublemakers’ in my DD’s private school - probably start the year with one in each year group who have slipped through the vetting process on entry. They either pull their socks up or they are gone by the end of the year. Most pull their socks up as their parents are paying a fortune so they don’t want them kicked out. The school also has a dedicated pastoral team that does not teach!

When I teach in state schools I can have kids throwing chairs at my head and no one to take them out! In some bottom sets they are all troublemakers and no one learns a thing. The parents don’t give a shit.

This is where it all falls down. If something is seen as ‘free’ then you will get people who don’t value it. If you are paying 18k a year you bloody well do value it!

It may not be a revelation to you or I, but a lot of people in the thread (including the person I replied to) are treating school funding as a brute fact of the universe, and not something that is a result of deliberate government policy. There are plenty of other countries where, contra @tridento's analysis, the rich and poor have similar standards and outcomes from public and private school.

Right... And when the child is off ill for a week, who's feeding them this food that is only available at school?