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.

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

It's a bit rich you planning the abolition of private schools - when you cannot actually afford to pay school fees yourself.

Bertrand
I remember one of your threads from a few years ago - your ds wanted to quit the school football team because his team mates were all so badly behaved. I feel sorry for the poor boy if you could afford private school fees all along. Did he make any close friends at the school?

Clavinova - I could. We'd have to scrimp but we could. We wouldn't choose to.

Havent read the whole thread and personally I wouldn't pay for private school even if I could afford it but I think that for the inequality/unfairness debate private school is a bit of a red herring.

Private school is a consequence not a cause of income (or wealth) inequality. If you didn’t have private school it would have zero effect on it imo. If the existence of inequality bothers you then attack it at the root where you can actually make a difference. People aren’t richer or poorer than other people due to the school they go to. Not that it can’t make a difference in marginal cases for individuals. But on a societal level it is irrelevant. The difference between a good independent school and a good comprehensive or grammar is not sufficient to “buy” privilege (not even in terms of networking, where your university is far more important and good comprehensive schools get lots of children into the top universities), your kids already have the privilege if you a) can afford it and b) have the wherewithal and drive to get through selection.

So yeah, I wouldn’t waste the money but I really don’t think it matters if other people do.

Oh, Clavinova-was that supposed to be a clever "gotcha"?
Yes, he did, thank you.

And it would be deeply tedious for me to mention the public behaviour of many public/private school pupils-one near us is notorious for the way they conduct themselves on the train. Bad public behaviour is very little to do with sector. Like bullying, it can take a different form in different sectors, but is equally unpleasant on the receiving end.

I remember one of your threads from a few years ago - your ds wanted to quit the school football team because his team mates were all so badly behaved. I feel sorry for the poor boy if you could afford private school fees all along. Did he make any close friends at the school?

Yikes. This was a but uncalled for.

Bit*

We'd have to scrimp but we could

If you read the op's opening thread - she identifies two groups of parents - those who can afford to pay school fees but don't, and those who cannot afford to pay but do so by 'scraping by'. Her question was really directed to the first group.

Sorry Clavinova but the OP hasn't had a word to say since the OP in 700 posts, so not sure your interpretation of her original intention is particularly relevant to the direction the conversation has taken. Moreover I do not recognise the distinction made by the OP - you can either afford to or you can't afford to. 'Can't afford to' doesn't mean "would rather have foreign holidays"; it means "literally do not have the money".

Moreover I don't actually see why it would be rich for someone who couldn't afford private school to want to see them don away with - quite the opposite in fact. It's easy to tolerate injustice when you are capable of slipping to the positive side of it. Not so much when you are its unwilling subject.

Ennirem re housing, would you ban second homes?

Ennirem re housing, would you ban second homes?

I expect so - she probably has a tiny first home.

I want eventually to have a second home because I want a main base near family and a place near work for the weekdays. Obviously that’s contingent on affordability but I don’t see it as some hugely unreasonable proposition. There’s no significant demand on housing where my family live precisely because there’s no jobs there.

I expect so - she probably has a tiny first home.

Clavinova , are this bitchy little put-downs meant to sting?? What is the actual point of them?

Dapple I wouldn't ban them but I'd tax the bejeezus out of them. And all unoccupied or semi-unoccupied property, and landlords' unoccupied properties, and all land suitable for housing development being left undeveloped. And plough that money into social housing.

And for the record, I love my 'tiny' first home. I think everyone should have a home fit for their needs that they feel secure in.

I'm not on board with everything the Green Party want (most of it mind you) but their housing policies are shit hot: policy.greenparty.org.uk/ho.html

Who was that poster who got banned for trolling after years and years on MN projecting an image of being incredibly wealthy? She posted pictures taken from hotel websites claiming that they were rooms in her house?

Crumbs, she still posts on here under another name though. I didn’t think she got banned?

Maybe she didn't shitland , I thought she did. Something just about this thread brought the memory of that poster and her amusing herself creating a fantasy alter ego who was was part of the 1% with her houses and private schools etc. back into my head.

I think she might have even posted on this thread . Not sure without checking back.

I am enjoying this debate and hearing all sides. I think it's completely natural and normal for posters to justify and rationalise the choices that they've made; who wouldn't? I haven heard many posters come on stating that they went private and consider it was money down the drain - but that could be egotistical or embarrassment. I agree with previous posters comment about the long term lack of state funding being the real issue here and probably the post-Thatcher consumer boom at the turn of the millennium. My point is that we can't turn back time. People have tasted a free market in so many guises; health, education, supply of utilities, travel, pension plans......and frankly they like it. You can't erase recent memory and you can't shoe horn people into a constrained choice. People who are making private options are still paying into health and education, there's no financial opt-out, but the fundings been too scant for too long.

When push comes to shove, how many parents or people (who have a choice) would be prepared to go to an underperforming school or hospital rather than a private one JUST for principle or the good of society???????
Bearing in mind the health choice I've just outline could be actual life or death????
Honestly I don't think too many. Corbyn didn't (though maybe his folks chose for him), Diane Abbot didn't as she was worried her DS could fall victim to London gangs - valid reasons?

Tinkobell my DP went to private school and considered that his parents wasted their money. In some ways he felt it was harmful to his development of social skills, and he was made to feel lesser by the privileged majority because his working class parents had to make sacrifices elsewhere to afford the fees.

As I say I don't expect any parent to hamstring their own child. It goes against nature. But when making one's decision to vote I think we have to put self interest to one side and make our mark next to the people most likely to try and create the fairer society we would actually want to see, rather than the party which will protect our particular advantages (fair or otherwise). Like I say, I see no contradiction being against the existence of public schools on principle but, given they do exist, leveraging the advantages they offer for her son. As long as, if it went to a Commons vote, she voted for her principle rather than her survival strategy.

And I won't use private schools for my child (I don't think, who knows how things may work out) because :

(a) I don't think she'll need it
(b) I think she would miss out on the things we'd have to give up as a family to afford it and
(c) in my assessment the potential risks to her personal and social development trump the probable benefits in terms of ultimate grades, and ultimate grades matter less to me than her emotional wellbeing.

I have to say though I really admire the poster who gave the decision to her children - I may do likewise. Although I wanted to go to a girl's boarding school when I was 10 so maybe not (Enid Blyton has a lot to answer for!!)

I wanted to go to a private international school for sixth form and I was sure my dad could have afforded it but when I asked they said “ok if you organise everything AND make a budget demonstrating how to achieve it then we’ll consider it”. Turns out my motivation stopped about the place where the requirement for work and initiative began.

I have to say though I really admire the poster who gave the decision to her children - I may do likewise

Will you allow her the choice of all schools though, including private, grammar (if relevant) or will it be “choose from my choices”?