to wonder why most of the threads on the education boards are about private schools

[kitnkaboodle]

... when only 7% of children go there? Is it just all more fraught with worry?? Do the other 93% of us whose kids go to local state schools just get on with it? Are our lives less complicated? Are we less invested in it all??

I've just had a peek and it was like trying to read a foreign language. ..

MN is home to many middle class, educated, wealthy people.

Far more than 7% of posters send their DC private. Hence more threads.

The decision to go private is usually more involved both in terms of the process and it's cost to the family.

That said there are lots of threads about state schools. During the recent secondary decision date there were lots and lots about not getting the school, how to appeal etc.

There are also more threads that are non specific of sector . Threads about SAT , homework, options, university.

The decision to educate ones DC privately is, on average, more decision-fraught and includes a larger number of variables than the decision to educate ones DC in the state sector. Hence a lot of conversations (in real life as much as on MN).

I always find it odd that MNers are by and large a very left leaning bunch and yet so many seem to opt out of the state system.

IlovePud - there's 800,000 users on Mumsnet. Everyone is represented.

I get that MNers are a diverse group but I would say the prevailing ethos is left wing, maybe that's just the threads I read.

I think it's as simple as the fact far more than 7% of mumsnetters educate privately. Maybe we should do a poll to find it exactly how many do.
Maybe you should have to prove your income is above a certain threshold to be allowed on mn

Lancelottie... You really think that most people who send their children to private schools don't have to make sacrifices?!

We won't be moving, won't be upgrading our battered focus, won't be visiting family abroad. I could go on. I would say these are sacrifices. A bit more than your example of not having a hamster, wouldn't you say?

No, enjoyingmycoffee, Lancelottie is making the very easy to understand point that for most people no amount of "sacrifices" will add up to private school fees. Surely surely you get that?

I think that it is an attitude thing. People who are state educated (myself included) just don't expect to spend as much time discussing their education, and I suppose their children's education. Whereas I am quite frequently informed about how wonderful a colleagues private education was I rarely hear the same from state educated colleagues. Not due to the fact that it was any less wonderful, I just don't think it occurs to state educated English people to discuss it anymore than necessary. It isn't something I would bring up and expect other people to be interested in anyway.

Yes, I see that. Thank you mintyy. Thank you

For some of us the decision not to go private was easy because we don't actually think it would be better for our children and are perfectly happy with the comp that our kids go to.

Ethelb, I think many private educated people really did have se quite amazing experiences at school. Perhaps trips, experiences, opportunities... That really have remained with them. Whereas even though the education may be fantastic in a state school, I doubt these other aspects were quite the same.

You are welcome.

I would love someone to come and show me how dh and I on our very comfortable income could make savings to do with not upgrading our car and not going abroad a couple of times a year that would add up to approx £40,000 pa after tax . No amount of downgrading from Waitrose to Lidl is going to achieve that.

How many children do you have minty?

For our two, it's £26k a year. Eye watering. But not £40k

Because this is predominantly a "middle class" site, created by middle class women I would presume.

I'm not though DS went to the local comp.

Surely, if you send your kids to the local primary school, you'd ask friends around your area?

For private schools, chances are the families involved are more spread out, so a forum proves a lot more useful.

But choosing not to move, get a better car or go abroad means that you would have the money to do these things but instead you've chosen to spend it on school fees. Fair enough. I'd say the vast majority of people don't ever have that sort of money available to spend, let alone the luxury of choosing how to spend it.

In all honesty I'm a working class single parent and if I'd won the lottery when DS was small then I would have sent him to private school. I think most of us would.

Am I secretly pissed off that I'm poor, of course I am. Am I envious of people that have enough money to do this, the answer again is yes.

Having said that DS has had a fantastic education in state school and is doing very well in his "A" levels at what is deemed as being one of the worst 6th forms in the borough. I put this down to the fact that his teachers really and truly care about them and my son genuinely enjoys going to school.

Even if I flogged the car, the pets, the tent and one of the children, it wouldn't add up to a school fees-worth of savings.

Nah, I was suggesting actual hamster sacrifice, Coffee, to the Lares and Penates of School Fees (classical-but-budget-educated, me).

Two secondary aged children in London. £30-£40k would be pretty average.