Private schools - want to shout IT'S NOT FAIR!

[Yermina]

Went to PIL last night and heard all about sil's children's school. One of her boys is already attending a fantastic private school. Just found out his two brothers have also got places at very good private schools.

In the mean time my dc's are in classes of 31 at the local state school. My youngest needs additional support (sn) but isn't statemented (diagnosed but no statement) so doesn't get it. SIL's middle child has got into a mainstream private school that has outstanding support for children with dyslexia, which he's been diagnosed with. And will be in classes of 18.

Our middle ds is musically talented but there is really poor provision for music teaching at his state school and very few children there are learning an instrument. We struggle to pay for music lessons for him outside school.

Is it wrong of me to feel eaten up with jealousy and anger at the unfairness of a school system which privileges the children of well-off people so openly and seemingly without anyone else seeing it as something that's wrong or deeply, deeply unfair?

How would you explain to a group of children: you lot over here will have XXXX spent on your education, and lots of opportunity to develop your talents, and you lot over there will have about half as much spent on you, and will have much less attention from the teacher because there'll be twice as many of you in the class. Oh, and you kids with sn or specific gifts - unless your parents have money, you probably won't get the help you need to thrive educationally.

I know it's the way the world is but at the moment I feel bitter about it. Really really bitter. And jealous

Every time I go to my PIL's and have to hear about all the amazing thing SIL's dcs are doing at their school, their academic achievements, I want to go home and hide under the duvet and cry.

We'll never, ever be able to afford private education. We'll never be able to afford to move to an area with really good state schools. We'll never be able to get our children into church schools as we're not church goers, and our local grammar schools (2) are bursting at the seams with children from the local private prep schools, who bus their students in to take the 11+ en mass.

It's just so fucking unfair. It really is. I just want to get that off my chest.

That is all.

Dress it up how you like, but all I'm getting out of this thread is that the OP is insanely jealous of the purchasing power of her ILs.

So if they took them out of private school would you then be having the same feelings that they lived in a mansion? went ski-ing every half term? Have music lessons? or ballet lessons or any other lessons you can't afford?

Because the PILs would be making the same comments -"Little Josie passed her X grade in piano, isn't that wonderful" or "Xavi ski-ing off piste now, isn't he clever"

And you would still be here, bemoaning the fact someone has something you cannot provide. I saisd it before and I'll say it again Op - it will be you passing on negative feelings to your children and encouraging jealousy of their cousins if you keep harping on. It will be you that causes a feeling of being second best.

The other thing I'm going to tuck onto this thread is this mad pursuit of MAs and PHDs. I've lost count of the number of posters who allegedly have one, yet are stuck in min wage jobs. Seems like an awful lot of effort for very little reward in the most part.

The other thing I'm going to tuck onto this thread is this mad pursuit of MAs and PHDs. I've lost count of the number of posters who allegedly have one, yet are stuck in min wage jobs. Seems like an awful lot of effort for very little reward in the most part.

I am so with you there, the number of MBA students I know who haven't even added the cost of the course onto their annual income is not funny. Such a con.

See? You can't be outraged by social injustice without being charcterized as jealous or envious. People make suggestions about how the complainer can get a bite of the cherry, but just don't understand that it's possible to have a broader outlook, and be outraged on behalf of other people.

I do try to not get my knickers in a twist because next door has a nicer car than me All that angst, not good for you.

BTW - this from the Op I feel bitter about it. Really really bitter. And jealous

I rather think she laid her feeling bare there, no projection from me.

Would the OP be happier if her sil lost all her money, house, job overnight and the family ended up in a B+B with the kids at the dodgiest state possible? No, of course not.

Only fret about things that you have no control over - like health. Don't teach your kids that Timmy's dad has a sports car, and that's not fair! Envy just eats you up. Sometimes you need to compromise to get what you want. You really need a sports car? Get a second hand one or a do-er upper.

Some people are lucky enough just to put their hands in their very deep pockets while others have to work long and hard. That's life. I'd rather have my life and bank balance than the Tetrapak gazillions.

"I do try to not get my knickers in a twist because next door has a nicer car than me All that angst, not good for you."

Neither do I. But we're talking about education here. Not a disposable luxury.

I don't actually believe that private education is necessarily better than state. It is sometimes obviously. But I don't like the fact that that a child already dealt a good hand of cards at birth automatically gets more aces every round. And we live in a society that thinks that's absolutely fine.

Lots of people who do not earn much work hard too. I did not say otherwise. However if you make a deliberate plan when you are 13, eschew many of the things your contemporaries take for granted for 10 years like parties etc, get the best exam results in your school, university etc AND pick a career deliberately with high earnings and not take maternity leaves etc etc that does tend to make you earn more adn it is in large part through your own efforts, whether you started working class or otherwise. Thus you afford school fees. People living off male earnings, not working too hard, picking work which pays the minimum wage per week rather than more per hour earn less.

It's not rocket science so the reason some women on here cannot pay school fees and damage their children's chances is because they did not take similar choices. Make sure your daughters do not make the same mistakes.

Someone asked above how I could supervise music practice etc and work 50 weeks a year... well most of us who are parents rush to be home with the children and we make the time. I had a time when the twins were babies when I saw 5 - 7am on Saturday mornings as working time before they woke for a breastfeed. Think laterally. Read the women who earn £1000 a day threads.

Also as said above there are many unfairnesses - the parent who never reads to a child or feeds it badly or doesn't talk to it also damage the children as much as some (by no means all) state school places. Also some private schools are pretty useless too. It is not a simple private good and state bad by any means.

However what we do need to do is inspire women to get out there and earn more and have fun at work. Last week we learned women entrepreneurs earn more than men in the UK - that is brilliant news and bears out my own experience. If you own rather than be PAYE employee slave you have fewer choices which is why I advise all my children to pick careers where ultimately they may work for themselves. Out earn men. Buy your own school fees. Have fun.

ok seeker, level playing field here. How would you solve the problem of inequality in education as you perceive it?

Because if you are going to say, hypothetically all private schooling should be done away with and it's state sector for all - I am going to counter that with the PRU - frequently 1-2-1 tutoring at a massive cost from the school budget to outsource certain pupils to a different environment.

So how does a state specialist education differ from a private education? Because a private education does not detract from my child in a state system, but outsourcing to the PRU sucks money out of his schooling?

I'll pick this up again tonight. Time for work.

my ds certainly has not been dealt a good hand of cards at birth

a father who could not be arsed to see him for the first 18 months for more than a few hours a week, a father who still forgets to call him in the week, a father who still breaks his promises over and over again and will always put himself first but will pay for school as it is about his ego not just about getting a good education

It's not always the case seeker

but I do agree that the system is wrong I just put my political views aside when it comes to ds

No it's not that fair but like someone else said, you can't change that, so look at ways you can redress the balance.

Jealousy will eat you up and as has been already said, is an ugly trait. Try to let it go.

I don't think it would hurt to explain to your PILs how upset talk on this subject makes you, though.

If we didn't have private schools wealthy parents would give their input to the state system.

Not all of them. If they've got enough money they'd send their kids to school abroad if the private option wasn't available here.

Plus, all this crap about 'the upper classes' - the landed gentry are often more skint than the middle classes these days. The vast majority of 'rich' people nowadays are financiers, entrepreneurs, business people of some kind or other, some of them foreign, some home-grown.

Tough:
'Nhs training- there is the clue....'

You clearly have no idea whatsoever what "NHS training' of a doctor might involve or you wouldn't have made that remark. I am laughing at the idea that a doctor is receiving more than they give back to the NHS during their 'training' which is in essence many years of very hard graft. As a nurse, you have not have had to work anywhere near the same hours, undergo the same stresses, take the same level of responsibility as a doctor. As you have no comprehension of this, I will reassure you that a doctor gives their pound of flesh back to the NHS during those years.

I have no issue with nurses at all and have met some fantastic ones but you really do seem to have an anti doctor chip on your shoulder.

Will try to catch up on the rest of the thread later if I have time...

Probably a few hours late (long thread to read!) but I do find it hard to swallow that OP is jealous that I gave up my twenties to do a professional qualification whilst all my friends were out having fun. We only have one child. My husband works 12 hour days, every day. I spend my life running about balancing being a good parent and a good employee. These are all things the OP could have done with her MA and her husband's phd, but they have chosen not to.

Similarly I can't see how her children would know it is all so unfair unless she is telling them?

Hollyberrybush Mosman "I am so with you there, the number of MBA students I know who haven't even added the cost of the course onto their annual income is not funny. Such a con."

Well having done an MBA at a good business school thirty years ago it certainly changed my life, and that of many of my peers. I was bored in a middle management job, and because it developed my thinking and technical skills, and enhanced my CV, it enabled me to develop my career in all the ways I wanted to. It wasn't just earning more than enough to have covered the cost, if I hadn't been sponsored, but also, once children came along, to be able to cover school fees and work part time. I met DH too and he recovered the cost of his course within a couple of years, as did a lot of our peers, two of whom went on to the global boards of major companies and the sort of wealth that would have been unimaginable for them before, one was a quantity surveyor, the other a railway engineer. Of course another ended up dead after propping up the bar for shockingly few years and some did not recover the cost of the course but that was because just because you have the academic qualifications to get on an MBA course doesn't mean that you have the qualities to succeed in a business career. And there are MBA courses and MBA courses, you need to be careful to choose one that will develop you in ways that will enhance your CV.

But you do not just do Master's degrees for the money, education can be an end in itself, which is why I did another Master's degree, or a means to make yourself more effective in a vocation that does not pay well.

The thing with giving up your youth to hard study and choosing careers with high earnings is that if everybody does it there aren't going to be enough of those jobs for all of them, however clever they are and however hard they graft- so it can only ever be a real choice for a limited number.

Only so many new companies can survive.

Some academics get very high rewards- but a number of equally clever and hardworking ones end up struggling; often it's about something as simple as being in the wrong year group when funds are around.

It is naive to imagine that the number of managing jobs is infinite; more workers than managers are needed and if everybody gets 5 A's at Alevels, then some of the working jobs will have to be done by people with 5 A's.

So there will always be hardworking and clever people who cannot afford private school.

Still, I think it is important to separate a general sense of injustice from your own personal situation.

It is good and right to work for what you believe in politically, but you will do your children an enormous disservice if you teach them to feel hard done by.

On a personal level you need to teach your children that obstacles are there to be overcome. Regardless of your duties as a citizen, that is your duty as a parent.

How would people get those good exam results at school and university, Xenia, unless there were other people prepared to teach them?

Teachers and teaching academics do not necessarily earn enough for educating their children privately (a department cannot consist entirely of professors), but your plans would fall to the ground if they weren't there.

In response to your op (and I haven't had time to read the rest). To feel jealous and bitter is always unreasonable. Look instead at the reasons why your sil can afford it and have a think about ways you can maximise the educational opportunities you provide for your children; state or otherwise, moving, tutoring where necessary, etc. But rather than feeling that it's so unfair look at ways at making it more fair and pull out all the stops to do so. What's unfair for any child is a parent who doesn't do their best for that child within a set of given circumstances.

If you believe, as many do, that private education is automatically better, how do you square it in your head that the child of the person who empties your bins or mends the potholes in the road, or looks after your poorly child in hospital gets a worse education than the child of the person who presents Dancing on Ice? Or indeed, the child of the person who removes your child's appendix?

Wallison et al

Herein lies your problem:

''You're not supposed to send them to school for six hours a day and then educate them at home as well''

You are not willing to take the responsibility for the education of your children as you expect the state to do it all.

The ethos of the school our children go to is all about learning for life; children understand from very early on that learning doesn't only happen at school, far from it. Everything we parents do should be aimed a teaching our children, be it finding great and age appropriate books to read at home, taking them to museums, interesting trips, nature walks etc etc ad nauseam.

We should not just sit back and demand the state to step in and provide the education.

Rather than blame private school parents for the level of state schools
Wouldn't it be better to blame the parents who don't give a shit? The ones who don't make an effort to spend time with their children, to help them or learn with them.

Sorry,make more sense to,not be better to.