to ask if you can afford a 'private' school in the UK but have chosen to send your child/children to a state school why?

[Foreverexhausted]

My three year old DD has just started a nursery attached to a fee paying school. I chose the nursery because it is by far the best nursery in the area but unfortunately we can't afford to send her to the school itself as fees are £15k per year per child and we have two children.

We have friends who could afford private schooling but their children are in state schools and then others who can't afford it but are just scraping by because they like the status of children attending a private school.

We could just about afford to send our only child to private school but it would be a commitment to working full time for the next 15 years and scrimping on holidays.

Would much rather work part time, be around after school sometimes and have family holiday together.

It also depends which real world you are preparing them for. I know many people who have been excellently prepared for the world they inhabit by their private schools.

Lets have a look into our situation. we have 6 primary schools within less than 1 mile.
School A is ofsted outstanding (rating is 6 years old), results are a bit below national average. To get in for sure you need to buy a house within 150 m of the school, for approximately £40000 extra, or rent for about £400 extra a month. School will likely not stay outstanding at next ofsted visit, results aren’t great.
School B and C are ofsted good, results below national , the osted report says something along the lines if improvement in reading and maths are required. houses are about £30000 extra if you want to get in.
School c is infants only anf goes into B with huge classes afteewards.
School D is ofsted good, results waaay below national average, “urgent improvements for reading and numeracy needed”. free spaces, but results are miles below national average.
School E is in special meassures and likely to be shut down. kids will then go into school D.
School F requires improvement, and has been for ages. bullying problems, and results waaay below national average.
2 excellent private schools in walking distance, non selective, exellent pastoral care. Fees are not enormous (and no extras either), ethnically mixed. move to the area of school A is about 4-5 years of school fees.
What would you do if you could afford it?
Spend £50 000 to move next to school a, loose this money with the next ofsted and go to a school with below average results (but stay in state system). Andcspend loads of money to supplement.
Send you child to schools with serious problems?
Go private?

Ah yes that famed “real world” that is only for pupils of private school?

Because once you’ve been to private school you’re only capable of interacting with other private school pupils?

Forgot about option F : catholic school, good ofsted, results just above national average. VERY catholic, extremely strict (and expesive) school uniform.

In general im really against private schools.

Bouncing - yes, so although you are against them you are sending one of your children to them. In other words you’re against other people using them but it’s fine if it’s your child.

My dgc are lucky in that there are local Outstanding state primary and secondary schools performing as well as or better than local independent schools.

Where ARE all these outstanding state secondaries that outperform independent secondaries?? Do they only exist in Mumsnet or perhaps in London. I've never heard of one local to me (Midlands)

lot of people are saying they send their kids to state schools and then pay for tutoring/extra curriculars outside of school. Surely this is still using your money to buy your child experiences and opportunities that many other people can't afford for their children?

The ethical question is not because it gives people an advantage over others; that situation is riddled through capitalism and would always exist - social capital and parental engagement, which I mentioned before, is a far greater influence than private tuition and cannot be levelled off by governments!

The issue is private schools actively damage state schools by headhunting out the best teachers and removing them from the state system; they also deprive the tax system by disingenuously posing as charities. And yes, the exclusivity increases social divisions - alright, in a state school some pupils would be tutored at home and some wouldn't, but they'd all roll around together at break time and not all your child's friends would be wealthy, usually white, usually middle class.

Yes. You've put it so much better than me. Private schools contribute to making state schools in some areas worse than they might otherwise be. A school deprived of its best performing pupils and teachers will 'fail' and find itself in a spiral of decline.
Our school had its best physics teacher leave, poached by the local private school bc he had in two years supported two pupils into Oxford for the subject - unheard of! Now they may have got in Without his support, but the local private school was taking no chances and offered him a shiny new salary. Now I don't blame Mr P... but I do blame that school, which by the way benefits from 'charitable status'.

Where ARE all these outstanding state secondaries that outperform independent secondaries??

We have two outstanding state secondaries. We’re in catchment for both. We actually decided to go out of catchment for an outstanding grammar.

Out of the three, only one outperforms the local independents.

We’re nowhere near London.

Ennirem

I think the diversity question in terms of ethnicity is interesting. I’m semi-rural, the local primaries are pretty much the majority of white pupil. Then you get into a town and get schools that are 100% E2L intake.

Then as you get fully rural you get schools that are 100% white British.

The prep my daughter went to was in fact MORE ethnically diverse. They also have an excellent SEN reputation. 50% of my daughters class had SEN.

My goodness - all the chips on shoulders re private schools. I especially like the PP who claims they are against private schools but they have a child in one! Is that you Diane Abbott?

Pupils are out of a school half the year. Are you saying that the private school pupils will only mix with 'their own kind' everywhere they go? My DS went to university and he shared with 4 lads. Two went private and 2 went state. They stuck together for the 3 years. No fallings out, no ex private pupils splashing the cash etc.

I wish people wouldn't spout off nonsense without ever having experienced or stepped into a private. A lot of boys at my DS school get help with the fees. The boys don't care (the parents are always interested).

Where do we draw the line in potentially helping our children:

a. Sending them to a private
b. Paying for tutition for a sport of interest that is not offered in the state system
c. Paying for a tutor
d. Asking for extra help and lessons within the state system
e. Helping them yourselves with coaching and support
f. Moving to a catchment area where there are great schools (and paying more for a house).

If people saying they don't believe in private schools are doing NONE of the above maybe they are really do believe in what they say - but I bet they aren't!

I would consider going private, not for better academic results but for a much more rounded, child led school experience which I think should be the norm in state schools. the type of school I'm looking for is quite rare however so for now I'm sticking with state.

sunglasses only option one removes the wealthy, talented and privileged from the state school system. This has all sorts of repercussions.

I can claim no moral high ground for going state having purposefully bought a house in the catchment of the top state school in the county with "exemplary" pupil behaviour according to ofsted which is single sex for the sex my dc happen to be. The results are pretty much the same as the local girls selective private school. There are state schools I would pay to avoid but made sure my kids didn't go to one so would be pretty hypocritical of me to judge private school parents

Oh and I went to private school from state and almost immediately cut off my state friends. I had to act so differently at private to fit in that it was too much trying to be two different people. Some of the people at that school were the most horrendous snobs who bullied me for not getting more expensive Christmas presents, and looked down on people who were academically less able or had smaller houses. If I have a chip on my shoulder private school put it there.

I spent my school life at state school being dubbed "posh" which I didn't think I was but guess its all relative. Bumped into a lad who was in my form a few years ago and on hearing my job shook his head and said "well you always were posh".

Though tbh they weren't being particularly unkind. I guess I can live with posh . Went I got to university I met real posh people and wished my school mates could meet them and see how unposh I was in comparison!

Kerala - that happened to me, and to my children! Posh is such a relative term. My children were always a little uncomfortable with the label which was less about money I think than parental expectation and support. As I said earlier in the thread, as parent I found the lack of aspiration among other parents at my DC's school a real shock. That's something she should bear in mind.

The state Primary I went to was single form entry and very nice and friendly - I was the epitome of a bully magnet (YR teacher wanted me assessed due to lack of social skills/interest in other kids) I don’t know how it did on league tables, but it was very nurturing.

Rich parents in catchment would generally send their kids to the Primary school, have them sit the 11+, and either accept the place at the Grammar or single sex college or (if they failed) fee pay them to one of the single sex colleges - the in-catchment state secondary was really bad.

My sister attended one of the single sex colleges by being in the top 5% 11+ marks. She found it hard there, as the rich kids would bully her and the other few who made it in with brains instead of bank balance. My dad had the same experience of the single-sex boy’s college in the 50s when he made it in despite having a chaotic home and violent alcoholic father.

Believing that all children have a right to a great education whatever their background, does not mean one has a chip on ones shoulder

It very much depends on the schools, I think.

I attended a comprehensive. I was the only child in my year to get an A level. It has plunged in and out of special measures in recent years.

DS won a scholarship to a public school. It was exactly the right school for him and he's done very well and got a far better education than he would have done at the local comprehensives. It's also been much more diverse than the comprehensives would have been: children from all social backgrounds and internationally, too.
We'd tried the state system up until the end of infant school and it was a disaster: they couldn't cope with him. I doubt very much that things would have improved as he got older.

It would be so nice to have a discussion about education without anyone talking about “chips”. So very tedious.

It would be so nice to have a discussion about education without anyone talking about “chips”. So very tedious

Indeed. Wouldn’t it also be great if we could have a reasonable discussion about education without the snide comments about private education.

Not every private school is better but the best really are worth it.
My ds soon wouldn’t / didn’t thrive in the state system because they don’t have the time to nurture all of those who need extra attention for whatever reason. There are some great state schools but the ones here are average and I wanted a more holistic approach to his education, his public school offers that.