How do you decide between private school or state school?

[Hecegoza]

I'm so torn... There's a lovely prep school, relatively close (15 min drive) and it only has 123 students - from age 1-11. I'd want mine to start at Pre-Reception.

It's very family-like and has great pastoral care (which I think is more important than results, for sure).

It's reasonable price - it's £21 a morning session for Pre-Reception and then £2,900 each term up to Year 6. That includes lunch/swimming, etc.

Then there's an 'Outstanding' state school which is walking distance, it's a lovely newly built building. Then friends he met at school would most likely be in his village too... So that's a bonus, and most likely to go to the same secondary.

I'm struggling to decide if your kids go private, why is that? If state, why did you pick that? I feel they both have good benefits!

Ice cream.

You could sacrifice your house, job, anything other than bare essentials and you'd afford it.
Obviously if you have high outgoings you'll never afford it.
I've heard of some fantastic sacrifices people have made because private education was a priority.
I'm not suggesting you should or shouldn't but it is quite doable if you are determined and it's your main/only priority.

Maybe all poor people should be sterilised at 14? The inference being that poor people are bad parents. That's a truly horrible statement to make.

Yes lets all take statements out of context to back up the fuckwittery we've just posted ourselves

^^ but your expecting them to go to parenting courses?

Who mentioned parenting classes? I was talking about support and engaging parents from day 1 and carrying that on through nursery and school, but whatever...let's just take the kids away from parents that may love them but are clueless.

New life you're having a laugh surely? You can't be for real. I repeat, a private school place costs more than my entire annual income. Not my spare income when I've paid for essentials. My entire income. All of it. In total.

IceCream.

Some people do it without an income through benefits.
I'm not suggesting you make private school a priority, but there are many ways you can do it.
The canal barge was real btw. My dh started his career as a teacher in private schools, even did some public for a while.
One of his students parents did this. Sold the lot, paid fees and got bursaries and hardship funds when they finally ran out of money.
Their dd education was the most important thing to the parents.

Blimey Op

Bet you wish you'd never asked

Do you ever wonder if you are living in a parallel universe Icecream?

Because it's really possible for people with little or no qualifications, income or assets to go live on a barge and become a teacher so that their children can be privately educated and if they don't then they clearly don't love their children or prioritise their education.

My children are in private school because we can easily afford it and there aren't any great state schools nearby.

That's it for reasons.

Indeed Magnum. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Can I buy a barge in Lidl?

You can't get in Lidl for all the middle class folk Icecream . The ones in our area are never near the deprived estates, they are in the sticks where people probably need a car or at least a bus or two to get to. The deprived estates are full of costcutter etc which probably aren't the cheapest.

Most people have the decision made by their bank account.

Onemagnumineverenough I am popping on this thread to back up points you have made as I am from the same area as you (in fact your children go to my old school). I live virtually next door to the "good" independent school in our area and my kids have attended the local state primary with many children who then moved up to it. Every year there is a test for a 100% bursary, I have observed that it is almost always won by someone who lives in our nice village and who's parents are FP's or went to a similar school elsewhere, never a bright kid from any of the local ex-mining villages.

The aforementioned parents tend to be arty types without solid careers or be single parents with partners who have buggered off and contribute little. (Isn't it weird how posh hippies suddenly want their kids to go to such establishment schools when faced with mixing with ordinary children)

My Dad went to this school on the 100% bursary in the old days when quite a few were offered, he lived in a council house 10 miles away with uneducated (very poor) parents, no one would encourage him to apply these days.

We could probably have just about scraped enough together to cover fees for a couple of our kids but we are self employed and it would have meant sacrificing any long term financial security (eg. pensions) and moving into a hovel, which would have been plain daft for the sake of a shot in the OTC and being in the pipeband.

Thank you wiggly

OneMagnumisneverenough

What has smoking got to do with whether a child can go to private school or not? Cigarettes are cheap, that's why so many people smoke, if they were expensive a lot of people would not smoke due to the fact they wouldn't be able to afford to.

Smoking is a disgusting habit and I can't believe some parents smoke around their children.

Back to the subject I also disagree with those who "scrimp and save" to send their children to a private school, why would you do that to yourself? That's living beyond your means, what are you actually going to do when they go secondary school and a trip comes up which you can't afford to send them on.

If you are not going to miss the money leaving your bank account by all means send your child to a private school, as it gives them the best start in life.

I don't know you in real life Magnum, I just have a lot of knowledge of schools in our area due to extensive research and personal experience of friends and family so I recognised the school from the description on a Scotsnet thread ( my DS2 is doing his Nat 5s too).

Ah okay wiggly :)

Love I don't raise the cigarettes issue another poster did.

I saw no advantage in private primary schools. Our local state primaries were great and local friends easy to walk to.
One child went to private secondary (dyslexia but bright and not really getting enough extra pushing, the smaller classes and higher expectations at his private school probably really helped him, plus a quiet geeky boy) the other chose to go to local secondary (no dyslexia more outgoing) and is doing well although I think science education (3 separate sciences from the beginning)and the extracurriculars were better at the private school but my daughter at the local secondary has more local friends and a better social life.

Evening folks. Just popping by with a plea for a little peace and love (private, state or otherwise). Thanking you!

"Some people do it without an income through benefits"

Not true. Sorry, without a full bursary and support, and as was said earlier, when it comes to bursaries, some children are more equal than others.

lurked

Yes, I'm lying I've never met families who have done this. Just thought I'd make it up, for a laugh like.

I'm not suggesting they are a majority by any stretch, or even representative, but they exist.
As do the ones who sell everything to do so, again another minority.
I do think that as there are only 7% of children privately educated these minorities are worthy of discussion though.

As for not loving your children because you don't do any of this is just a silly thing to say.
Just as silly as saying everybody who uses a private school is stinking rich.

We talked about going private when the state were mucking about with which school we'd get a place in. We eventually decided not to when we realised the private sector has no access to additional needs support from the local authority and would charge us extra for the support our daughter would need. In our case the support is for physical needs but they also charge extra of your child needs help with any educational support needs.

This frustrates me because they are basically excluding any child with a disability. The costs of support at our local private school would have added a third o to the fees. It feels like they are doing this as a way to be selective and protect their exam scores, which is a bit ridiculous because our daughter is in the top group in all her classes.

Anyway, it's something to bear in mind, should your child need any extra support in school, that you might have absolutely no knowledge of yet.

I can't sell my home because I rent. I can't sell my car because it's leased. I could sell my belongings (tablet might scrape a couple of hundred, nice gold bracelet from my grandma and my "what if the washing machine breaks?" savings fund) and probably scrape together enough for a couple of terms of private primary schooling. I'd have to pick a favourite child though. Given that none of them bothered to help me tonight when I asked, I think I'll send the dog

Purple clearly you just don't want it enough otherwise you'd starve, prostitute the dog, and rent a tent instead of a house or you could just go and earn more money or why not just ask your parents?

It's bonkers to assert that anyone can go if they make sacrifices. We have a pretty decent take home wage between us and had to think long and hard before committing. No way could we have done it on an 'average' uk wage even if no mortgage. The schools know this and offer part bursaries up to wages of £60k (more in some schools).

We were abroad while our DC were small and they did not start formal education until they were 7. But were still on a par/ahead of privately educated UK children when we returned to UK. On the basis of that experience I would say that money spent on private schools in reception, Y1 and Y2, is money wasted. Only exception would be if you were aiming for places at the very competitive London preps at 7 or 8 (Colet Ct, WuS etc).