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.

Little Britain - as it was back in late 60s and 70s - everything state funded for better or for worse, sky high income taxes, huge unionisation across the board, little private or foreign interest at all.

"If Einstein lived in my neighbourhood I would like him to strive". From me. It is saddening that school has become a business of me and my kid. You kid alone cannot be a surgeon, an architect, an economist and an agronom. (not English). We the people have to make certain that school educates everywhere. It is hilarious to see Sheldon interacting with his Texas mama, on TV, but if school cannot achieve that, then we're screwed. Some will say it never has. I will argue it depends were you come from. Not every parent embraces their child's potential. It benefits us all to have a system that works. (All as your country, as me citizen of the world).

I think there’s no hope of abolition of either independent, faith based or grammar schools and equalising education provision.

We should be removing charitable status from all but a few very specialist schools such as Treloars or RNIB.

VAT should be imposed on school fees as a luxury item.

Money raised from VAT should be ringfenced for support of programmes to improve the life chances of those living in challenging circumstances - through enrichment programmes, university access support courses, music tuition, sports facilities and out of school provision.

Grammars should not be able to accept children from prep schools.

Catchment should be reduced so they serve local community. They should be linked to the local secondary modern with open transfer arrangements so that children who weren’t benefitting from grammar and were messing around could be swapped with a harder working, more ambitious child from the secondary modern.

University offers should be contextualised.

Fees for children from independent sector should be higher than fees for state school pupils (say more than 4 years in independent at secondary age to avoid popping out at sixth form to use up places in high attaining college or school with a poverty postcode).

"But you don't seem to want to accept a correlation between local state being problematic and choosing to go private"
Of course I do. i just think it's a bit surprising that, considering most poor state schools are in areas of significant social deprivation, so very many people with the money to go private seem to live near them. I think people should be upfront about the reasons for their choices, unless they choose to keep completely quiet about them. There is a late lamented poster of this parish who was completely upfront about her desire for her children not to be in a lunch queue with any child who got a 4 in their SATS. Simultaneously outrageous and admirable.

i just think it's a bit surprising that, considering most poor state schools are in areas of significant social deprivation, so very many people with the money to go private seem to live near them

I’m not sure whereabouts in the country you are, but where I am there is a marked difference between the affluence of the rural and semi-rural areas and the areas of signficant social deprivation.

The school we were allocated was 20 minutes drive (at school time, which is obviously the important time!), in the centre of a town which has high poverty.

My local private prep was rated RI by Ofsted. The two primaries closest to it were rated outstanding across the board.

Not all private schools are decent, and require as much research as any school choice. It’s not merely a case of affordability, it’s suitability.

Mandarine - yep, I think housing should be socialised too. Nothing, not all the other inequalities in this unequal land, has fostered so much inequality as the housing market. Everyone has the right to an adequate, affordable, secure home for life. So I'd vote for that too.

In the meantime though we have to live and I can't afford the uncertainty of private rent market. But yes, the fact some people can't get a coucil flat and others have multiple residences is disgusting.

I absolutely get why you couldn't send your child to that school, it sounds disgusting. But the children who are attending it are not scum. They are precious little children too. None of them should have to be attending a school like that. Is it enough, as a society, to say that once we have sorted out our own kids the responsibility ends? Or do you send your kids private, because that is your best existing option for them, but use your vote to support policies that aim to make education fairer and better for all children?

I did blame the teacher who left part way through dd's a level

Seriously? Teaching is a job. Teachers are allowed to leave. They have to give notice like anyone else. Any teacher who teaches A Level or GCSE is inevitably going to abandon a class part-way through their 2-year course whenever thet decide to leave a school. The fact that the teacher left to go to a private school is totally irrelevant - the effect on your dd would have been the same whatever the teacher's destination. If you want to apply for a new job, you apply when the job is available!

I asked this earlier but will again and address to you Ennirem, how are you going to overhaul the allocation system to ensure people get their local school?

I'm not the minister for education Jacques and I don't know nearly enough about the allocation process as it stands to answer that question. If I was even close to getting my way on this I would devote significant time to working out the details - that is the job of the politicians who propose the policies and are elected to implement them.

Of course it should. But where are these kids going until we hit the utopia of an equal education system? The ones that have SEN but aren’t catered for in the state system.

So what is your response to the issue if nothing is to change? Hard luck on the poor kids with SEN?

I don't understand if you had the money why you wouldn't. How can your child's education be "not worth it"

I had a terrible education I would in a heartbeat send my DS to private school. It hurts me to think he may be disadvantaged in a state school.

There are great schools here but the class sizes are large. So maybe a mediocre teacher in a small class size is better.

For me the class size and facilities / opportunities would be the deciding factor not cost

I do think in the absence of my Utopia though CherryPavlova's proposals are not a bad shot at at least attempting to level the playing field.

"It hurts me to think he may be disadvantaged in a state school"
The fact that you feel like that will go a very long way towards ensuring that he won't be.

So what is your response to the issue if nothing is to change? Hard luck on the poor kids with SEN?

You've totally misunderstood. My point was these kids at DD's school that are now receiving the education they SHOULD be getting in the state system, where would they go whilst the overhaul took place.

As I said early the only fair way to remove private schools would be gradual withdrawal surely? Meaning children that are currently in the school stay, no new intake and the schools are gradually phased out.

well, I can only speak for London but it's not that unusual here. And we moved here 15 years ago (because it was cheaper than other areas) and our little old banger was one of many, now it's being jostled by Range Rovers and Porches and even an Aston Martin. But lots of people are still here.

We can, just about, afford to go private, but only just (we couldn't contemplate it if we had more than one child).

I also have informing my choices the fact that one of DH's brothers, for reasons I won't go into, ended up at a crappy comp rather than the private school his siblings attended. Despite the education and affluence of his family that impacted negatively on him for a long time (though now their all in their 40s he's out-earning all of them - but his teens and 20s went very wrong indeed). My PILS hugely regret that they didn't fight for him more and get him back into the private.

”i just think it's a bit surprising that, considering most poor state schools are in areas of significant social deprivation, so very many people with the money to go private seem to live near them”

Many big secondary schools have a huge and varied catchment area, for a start. Plus Ofsted labeling a school as ‘good’ doesn’t mean it actually is. My opinion of our local secondary school is based on actual local well-informed sources, rather than on a fleeting visit from inspectors, and I don’t think it is ‘good’ at all.

I don't understand if you had the money why you wouldn't. How can your child's education be "not worth it"

Depends on your child and on you. I didn't go to private and did very well because I was naturally clever and was raised in a family where learning and knowledge for its own sake were valued and praised. My family were highly educated, articulate and interested in my developing mind. When schoolwork became boringly easy I would read.

So to an extent it depends on the child you raise. SEN excepted I truly believe parental attitude is the strongest determinant of how a child will respond to education. Of course if provision is total shite that will have an impact. But average children with average conditions but good home support will probably do well.

And it is about attitude. If by 'your children's education' you mean their ultimate grades and nothing else, private school statistically has the edge. But if you mean their whole experience - how much pressure they are put under and its impact on their mental health, the values they ingest, the way they view other people, how they define success for themselves and what they value in themselves - that is a more complex equation and your wishes for your child's overall education may not be best served by (some) private schools.

You've totally misunderstood. My point was these kids at DD's school that are now receiving the education they SHOULD be getting in the state system, where would they go whilst the overhaul took place.

No you've misunderstood. I'm asking you if you are happy to just accept the fact that other kids with the same needs as your daughter are not getting their needs met in the school you rejected, because their parents didn't have the option of so doing.

I have no problem with gradual withdrawal as long as it's part of a process with abolition at its end.

God @blueshoes, the contempt dripping off you. You really do revel in bringing the stereotype to life don't you?

If you were to look abroad as a result of progressive changes in education policy, I daresay the country would survive it. AFAIC, it isn't about bringing in astonishingly gifted parents like yourself to state PTAs who will save the failing institution from itself hmm. It's about removing a parallel system that poaches the best teachers. And no I don't blame the teachers. They went into teaching because they want to teach; this is much easier to do well at a private than at a state school (in general, I hasten to add, before all the fantastic state school/shit private school examples start again).

Add a massive salary increase and private company benefits and frankly you'd have to be saintly to resist (some teachers are saintly, mind, and stay in state schools because they believe - rightly in my opinion - that the impact they can have there will be of far higher value even though it will be harder to achieve. Like NHS doctors who could be working privately but choose on principle not to, these people are my heroes).

It is not necessary to go into stereotypes or namecalling. We are having an adult debate on this thread. Thankfully, my advocacy on behalf of the students is not required in your eyes. I daresay other posters have mentioned engaged parents as one of the benefits of a system that removes choice in education.

The parallel system you described above is exactly the interaction that goes on between the public sector and private sector in all walks of life. Very talented people still work in the public sector, as I am told there are great and better teachers in the state sector. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is a capitalist society. Both sectors will improve from the competition.

Private schools do not enjoy teacher job stability just because a place pays more or has better benefits. People who leave for better pay/benefits/easy life are the ones more likely to job hop anyway and so private schools could be setting themselves up for a high turnover by using such bait.

The quality of teaching is one of the areas I am least satisfied with at dd's private school, though it suits her in other ways. It is the usual churn of teachers, teachers occasionally not turning up for lessons/cover, maternity, leaving part way. Private schools don't have some special respite from the usual HR-type issues in any organisation.

You are not missing out that much in the state school.

Ennirem

My daughter has no special needs, unless you want to count G&T which I don’t believe should be, so there’s no issue to discuss there, I have no axe to grind.

I think I've read you wrong then as I have got from your posts you sent her private due to SEN which would not be supported in the school you were allocated. Going to have a reread as obvs that is a fairly substantial misapprehension!!

Nono.

We went private because we weren’t allocated any of our choices and the state school we were allocated was too far away for our liking and some major red flags in their Ofsted.

Whilst my DD was at school, it became very highly thought of for SEN, and by the end of her career she was in a class where 50% pupils in her class (not including her) were on the SEN register.

@CherryPavlova your proposals are absolutely unworkable without complete destruction of charity law as it stands.

Education is a charitable "good" under charity law. Charity law specifically mentions that schooling should always be considered in this way.

Removing education from the list of charitable aims would have a massive knock-on effect on a huge number of charities, not just schools.

Charity law does not require that charities give their services for free, only that they make no profit from them. Not all schools are charities - there are private schools that are run for profit and it wouldn't be so problematic to change their status, but they are a minority. Meanwhile putting VAT on private school fees would require education services provided by other charities to also come into the scope of VAT - massively increasing the burden on the wider charitable sector.

You cannot simply remove charitable status from an organisation. All its assets are the result of charitable giving that the law requires those assets to be used for that charitable purpose. A school could not simply carry on running as a non-charity using its charitable assets - all the assets including land and buildings would either have to be given directly to another charity, or the assets sold and the money given to another charity. Then the school could be re-founded without a charitable charter and no assets. I can't see that ever happening.

I don't think private education is necessarily and always an elitist luxury. It's been driven to become so by the policies of recent decades but it doesn't have to be this way. My dad went to a private school in the days of "direct grant" funding - so his parents (v poor) paid no fees and the school got funding from the LEA for his and about a third of places, but the other two thirds of the places were fee-paying, so it was pretty accessible.

Starting from the principles:
All children must be educated
There should be some degree of choice as to how children are educated as this is a free country

• then the existence of private schools follows naturally.

The problem for me is the massive gap between the state schools that are massively underfunded with about £6kpa per pupil which is not enough to meet basic needs, and the cheapest private schools at around £16kpa and all the swanky facilities and tiny class sizes - really overfunded compared to what is needed. Making an accessible midway point where parents can pool the £6k of funding from their LEA plus 10% of their gross salary (£4kpa for a couple working full time on median salary, goes on a sliding scale till it's cheaper to go with the swanky ones) would be welcome in my view.