Private school vs quality of life

[VeryTiredMummyOf2]

ok so heres the deal. DD has just been accepted at a pre -prep. (State primaries are not v good, have looked around them and was not impressed.)
We can afford it, just, would mean I can't work 2 days a week. however DH is now saying he's unsure about it all:(
His argument is that 10k a year would give us as a family a decent quality of life, if and when DD 2 goes you are looking at 20k a year.
My thoughts are that you are investing in your children's future, I never went to a private school, but worked hard. I just want them to have a better life than i did. This so frustrating.
AIBU? Do I need to get a grip and get on with it.
Help?

Move house?

Yeah the boiler thats another one! I don not want to move house, we have no mortgage and I want it to stay like that. Plus we have family close, good road links etc

We wouldn't do it if it meant sacrifice to our family life either. I realy would go with the local primary school for now, as long as you are involved, they are happy etc your child will progress.

Put your 10k a year aside now if you can afford it, and more if need be ready for number 2, and if you are that passionate about it, do it for seniors.

I cannot pretend to be in favour of private education. I wasnt even when my employer was prepared to pay for it.

There, I have laid my stall out!

My DCs primary school was in special measures. Their secondary school goes in and out of special measures like its caught on the door handle.

Despite all of this DD1 achieved an A grade GCSE in year 7, a B grade AS in year 9 and an A grade A level in year 10. DS is mildly dyslexic but is in top set for maths and is currently reading The Lord of the Rings for pleasure. DD2 is a grade A student.

If you are committed, concerned and involved then your DCs will do well wherever they are. If you are determined to go private then really I would do it for A levels. You will be wasting your money before then.

20K is a lot to find and it will go up by 5 to 10 % each year irrespective of inflation. Also secondary school is expensive. Typically you would be looking at 15K per child plus extras.

Are your state primaries REALLY that bad. Could you not supplement with tutoring? 160K would pay for uni education and house desposit and have change left over. Or prehaps you could invest at secondary level where it is more critical.

Agree with the majority view here - unless you're both positive it's the right and necessary thing to do, save the money for now. From a small child's perspective, having their mother around as much as possible counts for more than an expensive pre-prep ... are you positive the state primaries are all dire? Could you move? If you planned it right now, you could line yourself up for a good state primary AND secondary (wish we'd done this - love our state primary, couldn't be better, but secondary seems a bit less inspiring ...)

Have to add there is a massive degree of luck in all of this - depends on who else is in the class re: friends,etc ...and how your child turns out, whether academically inclined etc

I don not want to move house, we have no mortgage and I want it to stay like that. Plus we have family close, good road links etc

Might be that staying where you are plus decent prep is not too different to moving to expensive house in area with good schools, ESP if that involves larger commutes.

mind you, we thought "oh we can always send them private for secondary", but then realised that in Y1 DS was a year behind, and in Y2 (sats) he was 2 full years behind...in y3 he was sort of "given up" on...

so we saw he would never get into any kind of selective secondary at that rate, nowhere near.

As we think he is bright but held back by SEN (which he is!), we moved him at the end of Y3.

So state primary then private secondary works if your child is able and bright and likes learning and you take a tutor in y5/6 as state primaries do not prepare them for private secondary exams for obvious reasons.

So go State first, but bear that in mind.

I think it depends entirely on how poor the local schools are as opposed to how good the prep you have in mind is.
If the primary were good and the prep also just good then...

But if you were talking the local primary where I volunteered you may well sell a kidney if need be for even the most middling prep! So many problmes, so little time to list...

I think it also depends on what you mean by quality fo life. I'm a spoiled princess, I know. I love all things nice. I wouldn't want to do without. I often torture myself with the question of which I'd choose, school or the life. If I'm ever made to choose it would really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

That said, I have friends who live a really very frugal life (these things being relative) to pay for an independent education. Biut they are mostly immigrants. They came here to avail their DC of education, and life chances, they're not remotely interested in 'lifestyle'. I can't help but admire them actually. I doubt I could be that selfless and single minded.

Your reasons for disliking one of the state schools (not much said about the other?) sound weak. Only you know what it is worth to you, though, to feel confident about the school your child attends.

"As we think he is bright but held back by SEN (which he is!), we moved him at the end of Y3."

IMHO state schools are often far more sympathic to SEN than private schools.

Not always the case reallytired. I moved my DS to and indie part way through year 6 for the same reasons as Chandon. He was failing badly and had become very disengaged. The indie has made massive progress with him in less than a term and based on what they have acheived so far I would happily pay double!

IME state school SEN support often fails pupils who are intelligent but have trouble expressing it usually via written work. My son was given support at his state school but dumbed down to such a degree he was bored, lost motivation and became angry that everyone thought he was thick. No matter how many meetings I had with the school nobody ever grasped that just because he couldn't write or spell easily didn't mean he had a low iq.

Now at his indie he is working at the same level as his peers (no streaming) and is engaging really well as the work imo is more interesting and challenging plus no SATS.

I've never been someone who gave private education much thought until the last year but this school has really impressed me with the level of support they have given my DS. Having said that my DD (now at uni) did very well in the state system and my younger Ds who is doing well in his state primary will probably be fine too. We have decent comps around here around 60% a-c gcse pass inc m&e but the figures show this is only if you are a middle to high achiever.

I think if you can handle the fees which will increase above inflation every year, factor in that secondary private education is more expensive, and understand that it's harder to switch to state once you're 'in the system', and that you've added the 10% or so on top to budget for uniform, trips, music etc lessons on top....then yes, as long as you are sure that the state primary really isn't the right place. Have you been to look at it?

Friends with children in private prep don't seem to have brighter/more advanced children than ours - they do a lot more sport obviously, have longer holidays, but I wouldn't say that I'm seeing huge value for money - but then it's their choice, and they can afford it and they obviously have decided that it's the right decision. With four children, it's rather different for us - we chose to move to an area with very good schools so that we didn't have to go through the private route. My parents sent us private from the age of 4 - and urged us not to get on the fees treadmill unless we absolutely had to! The additional money that we're not spending on fees goes on other activities for the whole family. In fact at my children's swimming lessons at the local pool, there are as many private school children as state ones - I thought that they would do them at school (we certainly did), but it seems that paying high fees doesn't even get you school swimming lessons .

Sure this has already been said, so sorry if repeating a point already made, but it massively depend on the quality of the independent school you're considering - nothing worse than those crappy little preps that are only just getting by ... I actually find the lack of any real accountability in some of them scary. Many don't have governors, and I've heard various stories about children with special needs effectively being shunted out for not fitting in, rather than issues being properly addressed ...plus cover-ups when things go wrong, as happened with a teacher disappearing at the school my friend's DD attends mid-term..

Also with the previous post on the swimming lessons - exactly the same here, with some v posh schools around - I'd have thought the extras (great sports, lovely buildings, great art facilities etc) were one of the few obvious good reasons to go private if you could afford to, but not sure they are consistently better.

Have you been saving towards the fees over the last few years or are you planning to pay for them out of earnings?
I think your families happiness and health should come first. If the private school system is going to make your husband stressed then I don't think you are being fair.

I have experience of both private and state. Unless the local primary schools are really awful, I would use the state sector for primary. You can teach kids an awful lot at home (reading, writing, maths, looking up history books etc) and they don't miss out too much. You can then save your money for private secondary or quality of life things. My only concern would be that if the local private schools were highly selective and your children needed to have intense preparation for the exam in a prep school first.

If you can afford these fees then why not think about putting the money towards moving elsewhere. You might not be impressed with the state primaries near you but there really are lots of excellent state schools out there.

Anyway, how do you know that you will get a better education for your child if you pay for it. It doesn't necessarily follow. There is an independent school in our town which has its own prep and pre-pep department. Children have to pass a selection exam to get in to the secondary department. Some children from DDs primary applied and they all passed the entrance exam. However, another friend's DS went to the prep but failed to pass the exam to get in to the secondary! I would be a bit fed up to say the least if I had paid seven years prep school fees and then they still couldn't educate my child to a sufficent standard to pass their own entrance exam.

I think if you don't live in an area with depressing primaries, you can't understand the very awful depths they can plumb.

In my job I visit several local primaries a week, many of them are just benign holding pens, fighting against a tide of parental apathy and in some cases parental ambivalence to an education system that will allow their children to read and understand any language, especially english.

I work with children who are not SN and who cannot read anything but baby board books (in any language) at the age of 7 and 8. One of the schools in which I work has display boards so bad that my fingers itch to correct the TEACHERS' explanation panels. The children are often from very deprived homes and because it is a high rental area there is a turnover of 80% of the children from reception to starting secondary. 80% of the children also do not have english as a first language, and with the best will in the world, the teachers are never going to be doing anything but playing catch-up.

The thought of sending any reasonably intelligent child into a situation where they will be mostly ignored by the teachers, (because they're too busy with children who need a lot of help), with no playing field to expend energy on, and an apathetic parental force who won't help in any way fills me with dread. And it's disingenuous to pretend that only academic considerations are important with a very young impressionable child.

For reasons that I won't go into we cannot move, we have no choice about where we live, and if I could afford private primary eduaction for my son I certainly would. As it is we may well have to home-school.

I moved from an area with excellent primary schools when my older son was 8, he didn't do well in his new school here, we ended up home educating him for the last year of primary, and practically bancrupting ourselves to pay for a state grammar boarding school at 14 after a disasterous, brief, secondary, state educational experiment.

The practical considerations are enormous, we can no longer afford a car, the roof is leaking and we've removed the gas central heating system because we couldn't afford to maintain it. My OH has been jobless since DS2 was born so there is little hope of a financial revival.

Did we do the right thing by sending DS1 to boarding school? Absolutely!

d'oh. hangs head in shame

reallytired, that is what I thought!

reality does not always conform to expectations, sadly....

the private school sort of "specialises" in dyslexic children, as well as the super-bright who need extra challenges. interesting mix, but they get great results in y6 and some of the dyslexic children get into a great grammar on a scholarship!

Schools CAN be amazing, not all schools are...

I saw another private school which was fancy and plush but not as good, academically, as the state school, so then I would think : "what's the point?!"

I mean: .... grammar or private secondary on a scholarship (some former grammars have gone private now)

Looks like the best option is to send to local primary, will find out on 13/4, guide DD In her choice of friends, plenty of after school activities, educational days out etc...then save for senior school. sounds like a plan-why do I still feel :(

It is the best option, honestly!

Start tutoring when dc is in year 4. Ensure an interesting life with trips out and extra curricular activities and sports. Most private schools seems to want well rounded individuals which are sporty and healthy.

And put aside the money you would have spent monthly into a savings account or an ISA, and use it for school fees for both through secondary.

I'm always amazed on these threads at how many people say you'll be wasting your money with the assumption being that they won't be any further ahead and could achieve just as well in the state sector. That's not always what it's about!

When my eldest started school our catchment primary was graded outstanding with a huge amount of level 5s. DS1 is bright, DD1 even more so so I'm quite sure they would have fallen into the L5 category. I didn't pay for them to be well ahead at age 11; I paid and still pay for their day to day experience.

I also completely disagree with the school of thought that if you must pay, save it for secondary. If I could only afford one, it would be primary level every time. The absolute love of learning that my kids received was outstanding. They would have gone during the hols if they could. I have taughts in state schools both at primary and secondary and even the nicest, very best, very high achieving ones cannot offer what children can get at the very best prep and pre-prep schools.

I agree with QuintssentialyHollow . All of that interesting life stuff can be enjoyed by the whole family. And your options will very definitely be open at secondary level (if needs be.)