For this little girl to have put me off sending dc to private school.

[reallythough]

Name-changed as I have a feeling I'm going to get flamed and I'm a bit scared.

We are unsure of whether to send our dc to private school or state school at the moment, we have one starting school next September.

DC who will be starting school next year attends pre-school at a nursery attached to a private school which we really love, the staff are brilliant, dc is very happy and has lots of friends. Last week I picked dc up and walking out of the school an 11ish year old girl and her siblings ran out shouting 'oh Daddy you've got your new Range, look at Daddy's new Range everyone' on repeat about 5/6 times whilst looking around to show everyone that she didn't know (it was a particularly nice car).

I don't want our dc growing up surrounded by people who place importance on materialistic posessions at such a young age. It made me wonder whether a state school will be a more organic surrounding for dc to grow in rather than the quite narrow selection of people they will be socialising with at an independent.

I read something the other day about how we try to re-create our own childhood for our children and I went to private school but after juniors was desperately unhappy there and felt trapped. I am not criticising the girl at all but it did remind me that on the whole a lot of the people I went to private school with were very materialistic and quite narrow minded. AIBU for this to have jolted me to have a serious re-think?

people who care about education self-disinclude themselves from our local comp.

people of all income brackets at the primary are already plotting how they'll avoid it....

those with more money have a higher chance of success. you really will only find a very specific income bracket there.

I went there - you didn't meet 'all sorts' there.

so again....to get variety, is a school-by-school matter, not a state vs independent thing...

You cannot say with absolute authority thst this is true of all State schools- it is just not!

Exactly!!!

nor can you be sure tis true of all independent ones.

Well no because as I said, a whole sway of people that cannot afford private school fees cannot attend private school where as the opposite is not true!

well of course anyone could go to the school, the simple fact is they don't.

the end result is the same thing.

But they do, maybe not in your area but it is not true to say that they don't.

I went to a private school and honestly it was lovely. The people were great and really quite welcoming. There was such a diverse range of cultures and backgrounds that if helped us all to be much more rounded and open minded.
A huge difference to the snobbery, bigotry and downright nastiness of the local state school my kids used to attend!

Goldenbear. I agree up to acpoint but, again, the issue is only true if your child's experience begins and ends at the school gate.
My children meet friends from all over the place, especially once they hit senior school. They have relatives and neighbours from different income brackets. Some of my family are in social housing and their children attend a school recently featured as having some of the worst results in the country. They meet kids from different schools at swimming lessons or sports clubs or brownies or at parties or friends houses.

If you expect or want school life to form every aspect of their social interaction then you are possibly not thinking it through. And the crux of the ops point boiled down to private school = brat.

My DD is just 10. Of her group of closest friends, six are at her school and four are not. Not one of her cousins go to private school. she is extraordinarily fortunate in many ways. But she is not a brat because she has not been brought up that way. Besides her school is private but they would not tolerate bratty, smug or entitled behaviour. I would never have chosen a school that did.

The nicest children I ever met were two girls who went to private school but came from a family of sarf London

They were funny, friendly and polite and got on with absolutley everyone because they were used to all worlds.

I think if you are going to vacillate based on this encounter, you're going to have the same trauma again the moment you hear some child at state school saying anything plebeian, to be honest.

In answer to your thread title - YABU.

I went to a private secondary school and while there were a few people like the girl you describe, equally there were lots of girls who weren't, they were normal, down-to-earth girls.

The advantage of the private school I went to was the higher standard of education and wider range of choices I had, than I would have got at the local state schools. In reality, those are the main criteria on which you should base your choice because your DD should still get a large part of her moral and social ideas from her home environment.

It doesn't say much for how you feel about your DD that you think she will be brainwashed by her peers into becoming a shallow materialistic little madam, if that's not how she's been brought up at home. Give her more credit than that.

What makes you think state schools are not full of materialistic kids showing off their latest trainers or mobile phone? The local comprehensive near where I live seems to be full of thuggish teenagers whose only care is that they have the latest gear!

Ds is at private secondary. It isn't local.

All of his friends are local. He met them doing his hobby.

He has friends from school but doesn't seem them that often because of distance.

It isn't an issue.

just because i found it really interesting when i looked

Heseltines wiki entry lots i didn't know there.

Alan Clark his Dads Art History work e.g 'The Nude' very worth reading.

not relevant really, but to treat these people as though in some way disassociated from 'real' life is rather weird to my mind. They are the people who made decisions forming the life we have today...even if they were'nt average people.

Yes, I'ev never understood why people think their children will benefit by mxigint with those of very low IQ who will never amount to much compared with the children of those who achieve, that you somehow convey some kind of gilded advantage by picking the worst sink school in the land on the basis that means they will then know how to talk to their cleaner. In fact it is the converse - private school can ensure children are able to talk to and mix with all kinds of people in a way state schools do not achieve.

Errr Xenia not being rich doesn't give you a low IQ and the vast majority of state schools aren't filled with children of low IQ.

We're not loaded but are well educated(not privately)3,degrees between us.Both dp and I went to dreadful comps,dp's was notorious for being dreadful.He still got into a red brick uni. My dc are bright,1 very much so9he has plenty of peers the same).My dc go to a very average school(satisfactory),believe you me there are plenty of very bright kids there.

Op I think you have a valid point.I have a friend struggling with the same thing,she actually pulled her dd out because of it.Bar this child I know several privately educated children and like not one of them.

Interestingly when I was at uni without exception all the students who had problems fitting in or who left early were privately educated.

Good Lord, I'm usually not embarrassed to have gone to a private school but then I read posts like Xenia's and immediately become so. Unbelievable snobbery.

That is not how most private pupils turn out though Prar. They are 8% of children and 70% of judges, and a massively huge percentage of just about the top jobs everywhere. So they cannot all be dropping out of university. In fact they tend to get better jobs and have higher incomes after university too.

I made my comments in the light of the statement that somehow children benefit from being at state school, that it gives them skills somehow to handle all kinds of people, to be able to be in this supposed "real world" which I have never understood. Children are private schools are better not worse able to deal with people of all kinds.

I disagree Xenia as this current government and cabinet illustrate.

The reason most privately educated kids get the best jobs is down to the lack of social mobility and connections.

There are plenty of rich children who aren't very bright(I've met a few) but they'll still do well in life because money and connections buy them success.

The way you post about the lower orders is vile, Xenia.

You'll be calling us all plebs soon Xenia.

this supposed "real world" which I have never understood

Yes, that comes across.

I think Xenia has kind of made the op's point.

Oh, Xenia, sorry to go off at a slight tangent here, but remember when you said in the aftermath of the booing of George Osborne that only the left are rude and boorish like this, whilst the privately educated right are innately polite and considerate? Have you anything to say about Andrew Mitchell's recent behaviour in this context?