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.

Private schools are harmful because of the perception they are better? Huh?

How do we stop people having good perceptions about things. We should always ban things that people have good perceptions about so that no one gets a bad perception about anything.

that was all busy working parents claimed for them, that would be fine.
Cant - I don’t understand this sentence. Are you saying that if parents chose private schools because they were more convenient that would make them ok?

blueshoes

Sorry, i should have been more explicit: they are corrosive because of the often unfounded perception that they are always better.

I am entirely fine with a specific perception, based on solid and balanced evidence, that something is better. So I am fine with 'X school has an intake very closely matched to Y school, but the progress all children make is twice as good' is fine.

I am not fine with a general public perception that 'private school education is always better than state education', because it is unfounded, but because it is a prevailing sentiment, it becomes 'believed as if it were always true'.

Does that help?

cantkeep I agree that many private school parents are buying the whole package, but the package includes a holistic education for their child, not just the convenience of a one-stop-shop.

Do I think a holistic education is better than an academic one. I think so. I don't make a big deal about it when in the company of people I know who use the state sector as it is not a nice thing to say. But it would be difficult for me to say hand on heart I did not think the education on offer in my dcs' private schools is superior because of the extras.

Dapple,.

An illustration may help:

Parent A: "I chose school A because it was SOOOO much better than school B in every way - the opportunities are so amazing, the children are so polite, their results are so good, my children would never have turned out so well had I sent them to school B"

Parent B: "I chose A because I work such long hours, their longer day and structured extra-curricular programme and prep was really helpful to me because I genuinely couldn't manage all the running around between activities after school with my job"

That was the kind of thing i mean - that private schools of the 'middling' type ARE convenient all-in-one packages, but the claims made for their superiority in every way to the equivalent state schools are often unfounded, and I for one would be much more comfortable with a simple 'convenience' argument.

cantkeep, this perception thing is quite baffling. Many private school parents know that some private schools are more equal than others. And there are those who won't be as good as the local state.

This perception is more prevalent in parents who use the state sector and are less familiar with the private sector. I am not sure who to blame for this. Is it a reason to not have private schools?

blueshoes

Do you think that holistic education CANNOT be provided by a state school + extra curricular activities, or is simply MORE CONVENIENTLY offered by a private school where it is all on site?

and I for one would be much more comfortable with a simple 'convenience' argument

So what if that isn’t the case?

cantkeep I get what you mean but that means private school parents have to speak with footnotes accompanying any statement they make about their dcs' schooling because of the number of caveats they have to include.

Parent A is crass BTW.

Thank you for answering my question cant

Do I think my daughter would have had as good an all round experience had she gone to the state school we were allocated? Absolutely not.

Do I think that means private schools, or even the private school she attended are “best”? Absolutely not.

Do I think the school she went to was best for her? Most definitely

A state school is not providing holistic education if it is not onsite. It would be a third party provider. I am not ferrying my children around to activities and letting the state school get credit for their holistic education when I was the one doing the hard work.

Blue, again that is what I mean by 'one stop shop'.

You see 'education' as being provided by 'the one stop shop which is the school'.

I see 'education' as being provided by the combination of school, home, the a wide range of extra-curricular providers (county music services, music conservatoires, professional football clubs, serious evening dance schools, Scouting / Guiding, D of E, and a whole panoply of others) who have been involved with my children at one point or another.

I see the school's role differently from you, but I would argue that the 'education received by the child' as being equivalently holistic.

I have one son at boarding school - for note we don’t come from that background.
Our son went to a well regarded pre prep and prep and was really struggling in year 6 which had he been in the state sector doing his SATS would have put him in the lower sets which would have destroyed what little confidence he had.
The school and I got behind him - his god mothers sons gave him extra help, the school moved him down a set and he passed his CE for a great school with a bursary.
If I had had a very able child a state school might have been ok but as I didn’t and as I worked full time for my own business I needed the holistic wrap around care that was so fantastic at his school.
I had him tested for grammar school and that was a non starter too.
My son is doing really well now and I’m pleased for him I was not going to use my child as a political point or deny him an opportunity that suited him due to an ideology that is mainly held by people who can afford better areas better houses better opportunities for their children by stealth.
I am complete transparent I pay for my son to get a great all round education and I have no problem with that. In my opinion some people who have a problem with private education tend to come across as chippy and holier than thou because they have chosen not to pay and sometimes the worst are those who can afford and don’t but get into a decent school by buying in an area that would be out of most people league -Holland Park Comp being as such.

I will say this - I don't particularly judge the parents who send their kids private, and certainly not the kids themselves. I blame the system that gives them the option to do so, just as I blame the tax system for permitting the loopholes that allows people to avoid taxation whilst staying within the letter of the law. People by and large are not selfless (god knows I'm not) and even if they are only sporadically and selectively. We don't have it in us to do The Right Thing all the time, particularly when The Right Thing at the macro level takes something away from our specific child. So we need government to make those choices for us. And we can all be virtuous long enough to vote in a government who will if we choose to.

@JacquesHammer I completely agree with your last points! This is what I've been trying to say all along !!

@cantkeepawayforever - you are determined to prove that private schools are poor options and corrosive rather an accepting that it's down to Individual needs! I really like the values of the private school that we have chosen for our son. If it were a state school I would have still sent sent him there. For me , this isn't a state vs private issue . It's what's best for my son and which school will
hopefully make him happy.

His is why, incidentally, I had no beef with Dianne Abbott (on the private school issue, anyway, can't much stand her otherwise). There is no contradiction in saying that the system sucks, and working to change it, and saying that within the sucky system I will do whatever it takes to give my children the best possible chance of success and happiness. The point is to change the system.

There’s a wide range of views and opinions on education on mn and everyone’s entitled to their opinion.
However I’m completely perplexed by posters who state they are absolutely opposed to private education.........and then go on to say they’ve got dc at private school!

Of course many ,private schools are brilliant, and suit their pupils down to the ground. That does not prevent them from also being damaging to society In general to and the education of the majority In particular.

Something that is a good on an individual level can also be a bad on a societal level.

cantkeep I see why you are now so hung up on corrosive perceptions. By being a ferrying soccer mum with the ability to afford all the outside school extras, you consider yourself to be providing an equivalent holistic education offered by private schools but don't like the fact that others still see your dcs' education as not as good because they are not in a private school. OK

I am also perplexed by posters who state they are opposed to private education and then go to say their dcs are at a good state school (in probably a leafy postcode) anyway. Well, you're alright Jack.

Ennirem Diane Abbott was hardly working to change the system if she had a child in this particular system.
Same goes for Shami Chakrabarti - her son sat the Eton pretest though either his parents had second thoughts or he failed the test as he went to Dulwich.

Ennirem you’re right change the system would be the best way.
What I noticed when I went around the schools before my son started: a small sample of 9 state 5 pre prep and 2 steiner in leafy relatively affluent Gloucestershire was that the state schools were not interested in selection for grammars and didn’t seem interested in pushing the bright children that way apart from one head whose children had gone through the grammar system.
She ran the most sought after school in the area - when she left within one year it was in special measures and considering we are a grammar area that seemed odd.
I must admit the preps didn’t prepare either for the 11+ but that was a fiscal decision as at prep they change at year 8 I’m sure but the state school they change when grammer starts.
Also it was so obvious over the years when I have had dealings with some state schools as I was a Foster carer that there was a distinct lack of joined up thinking and there definitely wasn’t the singing from the same hymn sheet - maybe just my experience.
At my sons prep I always felt everything was done for the good of the school and if there was a problem it was sorted well, it was such a beautiful joyful place that I still greatly miss being there.

Oh my goodness. I can assure some people here that in this 2018, most people I know do not have the general opinion that private school is better. But it is simply an alternative, if one can afford it.

Lucky for some of you that you have options. My very capable nephew (who lives steps away from Latymer but his mum didn't enter him for the test) spends his days baking and sending me ridiculous audio clips of his terrible singing... And bloody heck he wants to be a singer! . Private or non private, he needs to go to a better school where he's not being bullied everyday and he can focus on passing his GCSEs with decent grades. Stabbings in Edmonton are rife and often near his house or school. A teacher friend of mine actually quit his school based on the behaviour issues. My nephew desperately wants to leave but his mum says no. If I could afford it, he'd be in a better school, I really don't give a shit if it was private or not. Certainly don't care about some person in Chiswick disapproving.

Parsley, you do know that state schools in partially-selective systems such as Gloucestershire are explicitly not allowed to prepare children for the 11, don't you?

It isn't an 'ideological wish not to push the most able', but something they are not allowed to do.