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.

These firms hire internationally and really British private school 'kudos' is rapidly dying - meritocracy matters and hiring process ensures this is the case. Sorry to burst your bubble.

I disagree with the above based on my personal experience. I work in the corporate industry and have just started a new job after a few months of job hunting . Four of the big names in my industry where I applied for roles asked the following questions on the application:

1. Did you attend an independent of private school?

2. if yes , at what age group ?

3. are you the first Person in your family to hold a degree ?

4. do your parents hold a degree?

5. did you receive or were you eligible for free school meals whilst at school

With questions like these on application forms , I can see how people who attended private schools and or from the most affluent backgrounds get given opportunities and the "leg up!" Hard not to believe that private education is somewhere favoured with questions like this!

Coincidentally, today at work , my team of 8 decided to discuss who the most posh person is in our team . After a few minutes of debating this , our director then asked " who is the least posh person ?" To which everyone laughed ! It's appalling that this kind of attitudes exist in today's world but behaviours like this push me towards private educating my son. I wouldn't want him to feel excluded or out of place. My director wasn't private educated btw but comes from a very affluent family background so I guess these attitudes are not just bread from private education but family values inadvertently contributes to this.

Those questions sound like social inclusion monitoring questions to me? Not recruitment criteria?

Sadly they were recruitment questions on online applications for some of the big companies in the financial industry.

Cherry2727

These are questions lots of firms are asking to monitor and improve their recruitment to see if they disadvantage part of the community. Some companies have seen massive rises in less traditional applicants through this (for example by not requiring high A level grades and using aptitude tests to a greater extent).

I think you are seeing conspiracy when organisations are trying to do good things.

Sadly they were recruitment questions on online applications for some of the big companies in the financial industry

You're right that the privately educated dominate the industry but this simply isn't true. Like a previous poster pointed out these questions are for social inclusion monitoring questions.

I've worked with a charity that helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds gain access to competitive industries and as a previous poster said those questions are for social inclusion monitoring. The charity I worked with was sponsored by tier one banks such as of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as well as a few of asset managers and hedge funds. They worked with the charity and similar charities specifically to increase diversity and identify talented state educated/ethnic minority/female talent.

The application form students had to complete to join the charity as a candidate included all the questions you've listed as well as a question asking whether you'd attended an independent school on a bursary.

Haven't RTFT but my parents scrimped and saved to send me private. I could afford to, but I decided I wouldn't do that to my kids. They are happy and achieving well at state school. Their experience is quite different from mine, but possibly in a good way. They are meeting people from all walks of life and interacting with them. Like they will in real life

@Cherry - you're seeing it the wrong way completely! Chances of being hired into these firms if you are female, of an ethnic minority, from a 'widening access' background & have the requisite qualifications (NOT private school) are much much improved v a white male privately educated person. And still the firms despite this manage to look male and pale!

Re: Work Experience - for medicine this is critical for application process. We are at private and gained nothing from school. We also have no doctors or friends in family we could 'use'. At interview for medicine, applicants are asked how they 'acquired' their experience ......this is v important v the status of the doctor of anything like that. Unis want to see that it's the kids that tried to get the work experience. Work experience for successful application in many other subjects is hardly life or death. The grades are the starting point. Some don't even bother reading personal statements because they know they're full of parental / careers service spam.

It's interesting that posters see this this as method of inclusion as opposed to exclusion . I'm sure the motives are probably there on paper but in reality I see a different subset being hired. I'm sure there is a much higher intake of people from diff backgrounds as majority of firms now have a status quota to meet , however , once that quota is met, the majority of the workforce is derived from a certain class/background/schooling. At my previous workplace , when I resigned, my director's response was " how very sad , however , it means that we can now recruit an oxford graduate!". There are still a large number of firms who are obsessed with recruiting people from the most privileged backgrounds but I guess that's derailing the post !

Tinkobell my doctor daughter was state educated and definitely used our contacts for work experience. The questions she was asked revolved around what she’d learned from work experience not how she’d come by it. The assumption was pretty much private or grammar education in her medical school. Very few had arrived from comprehensives.

Our youngest on the other hand was put of medicine at independent school by people telling her it was worthy and terribly good of her but she’d need to find a rich husband.

Just to be clear , I do not disagree that there are state schools who produce very successful and well rounded individuals in society. I am in disbelief in the number of people who are outright claiming that private education does harm to society and should be abolished. Private education is a commodity and we reside in a free economy where we have the choice to pay for certain privileges. Perhaps the core problem here isn't the private education but the structure of the economy that we live in.

I attend a faith state school and it was perfect for me . My brother went to a different state school and was bullied very badly . I still remember the headmaster's response to my parents concern " oh well , he's just going to have to toughen up!" I This was a school in an inner London borough! My brother's confidence was severely ruined and he didn't leave school with good grades at all .He's now 22 and resitting GCSE Maths & English. He's recently passed maths and you can tell that even he was surprised at his full potential ! He was never shown this at his school. To all the posters who "happen" to reside in catchment areas with access to good schools where their kids flourish then "lucky" you ! Not everyone has access to these amazing schools.

Like I've said previously, we have chosen to private educate our son as the school in itself appeals to us in many ways ! No, it doesn't produce the highest academic results but their pastoral care is outstanding. Their academic results are average and feeds into a local grammar school . It serves as a one stop shop for us as we do not have time to ferry our son to after school activities after work as my dh and I both work long hours. I am certainly not sending my son to an independent school because I perceive them to be better than state , it's because this very one is better than the state options that I have .

Society produces all different types of people and the ones who do much harm to our environment are not just a by product of private education but w combination of both .

@Cherry - if your DD2's private school friends HONESTLY said that to her, she can only have been hanging around with a complete bunch of jumped up tits. I have never heard such a thing a my DD's private school.
Bit of a tease question directed at the pro-private sector scrappers.....what would you do with all the grandiose buildings like these ...ideas please. There's lots of them and I'm interested to know! 😁

.....like this!

Absolutely true. She decided not to apply for medicine, changed her work experience profile and is looking towards easier and more lucrative employment longer term. She was probably influenced by how hard her sister worked for such little joy and reward too.

Perhaps the core problem here isn't the private education but the structure of the economy that we live in.

And one more time for the people at the back!!!

That is exactly the problem. The perennial problem is economic inequality. But private schooling is both a symptom of an an exacerbating factor of that inequality, as it allows the haves to escape the underfunding of the state system, and thus continue to support that underfunding my tax avoiding and voting Tory because the collapse of the state provision won't affect them and theirs. Which means those who can't afford private schooling fall further behind those who can economically (I am talking in general terms here). It's the same issue as with property - the more you have, the more you make. Cycles of inequality and with every cycle the gap widens.

It serves as a one stop shop for us as we do not have time to ferry our son to after school activities after work as my dh and I both work long hours.

But you wouldn't need to work such long hours if you weren't paying for private school...

Those grandiose buildings could go back to original purpose of educating the poor, perhaps?

They are meeting people from all walks of life and interacting with them. Like they will in real life

That happens at most private schools too. It's not all the children of blue blood multi millionaires you know! Not all private schools are for the elite only.

My brother went to a private school. Mother was a secretary and Father was a grocery shop manager. We were a pretty "normal" family and the school fees were paid for by my mother working evenings alongside her full time job, and by foregoing holidays and running an old car.

One of my clients is a self employed plasterer, his wife works in Tesco - they had a "problem" son who got involved with undesirables at his state comp, so they took him out and sent him to a local private school. Again, just worked harder and did without luxuries to fund it.

Outside the exceptions, i.e. the hugely expensive, hugely elite private schools, a lot of private schools are actually pretty normal and affordable if sacrifices are made.

It serves as a one stop shop for us as we do not have time to ferry our son to after school activities after work as my dh and I both work long hours.

I am not working long hours because I am paying for school fees, I was actually working long hours prior to having my little one. I happen to have skills and knowledge which have placed me in a role which requires me to work long hours.

Tinkobell - I'd probably turn them into State schools or FE colleges as they'd already be set up for such purposes, although if that turned out to be economically impractical I'm sure the National Trust would love to get their hands on them,or they'd make fantastic free galleries/museums/libraries... Or perhaps a chain of state run "private education" memorial theme parks where people could pay to sleep in a bunk bed, do Latin verbs and be caned

Tinkobell - I'd probably turn them into State schools or FE colleges as they'd already be set up for such purposes

You’d think with enough money in the pot to buy all these buildings, the state system shouldn’t have any shortages

Fair dos Cherry2. I mean I can't think of a job in the world where you can't go part time, but if you don't want to there is no reason why you should.

To be fair one of the reasons I wouldn't choose private is it would scupper my dreams of going to part time hours so I can spend more time with my girl... I'd need to work full time (as I am having to now for practical reasons) to afford fees, and I'd rather have less money and more time with her. But that is a rather selfish reason for depriving her of "the best" education! As it is I see as much of her as any full time parent could (home 5 mins from work, work 5 mins from nursery) and it's still nothing like enough

Outside the exceptions, i.e. the hugely expensive, hugely elite private schools, a lot of private schools are actually pretty normal and affordable if sacrifices are made

Do you have an awareness of how blinkered this sounds? That there are many people (maybe even the majority but if not ceirtainly a significant minority) in the country who do not have opportunities that allow them to earn enough to even think about making those “sacrifices” for school fees?

Well quite Jacques, I'm sure the question wouldn't arise as the buildings are (I think) privately owned. I was just answering Tink's question at face value as doing so gave me the opportunity to be facetious

Ennirem
Rich SHOULD pay more taxes. The systems are starved, I agree with you. But they are not paying jack-all at the moment
Top 1% of incomes pay a quarter of tax revenues
top 10% of incomes pay 60% of tax revenues

www.ft.com/content/afd88af6-3645-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3