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.

Spot on onestep Islington liberalism at its finest.

I don't really get that reference either. No one is committed to a communist society and no one is saying that everyone has to martyr their own interests to the common good all of the time. So the fact that inequalities remain even if private healthcare and schooling is taken out of the equation is a sideshow at best. In any case my personal argument was not necessarily in favour of banning private school because I totally recognise that it's not incumbent on everyone to act in an altruistic way all of the time, but rather to make the moral case in favour of state education, which would ideally be implemented at the Government level. Similarly I don't approve of the system enabling people to buy their way into particular catchments or church schools or whatever and id vote for this to be addressed,, but Idon't particularly disapprove of individuals taking advantage of a flawed system.

The bigger issue is why all schools are not providing the education they should to our children.

Where I live the top performer is a true comp. entrance is city wide by lottery. Very high fsm and ethnically very diverse. Located in a bit of a sink area. This year it outperformed many of the good private options and wiped the floor with the other state schools including those in leafy middle class areas. Why is that and why can't all schools provide an aspirational education for our children.

This is a really topical thread for me as I have a year 6 child. What I have observed is that all private schools are not equal and leadership is key. The great state schools and private schools I have seen have great heads and that filters down to the teachers. My local state option (on paper very affluent area filled with kids who historically would have gone private or moved out of area) has rubbish's leadership so although ok has not enabled the kids in it to achieve their full potential. Some do ok, but are almost universally being tutored. Some of the independents are similar (and I see no point paying for them) and then the ones at the top of the tree are selective (so not taking the rich and thick) but also full of extra curricular opportunity. Kids not allowed out at lunchtime and made to take part in one of the literally 100's of clubs on offer. That's not financially led, as no one is paid extra to run those clubs but the compulsory nature of participation is key. Contrast with the state school where they are allowed out and descend on the chippy.

We need to move away from a purely curriculum based education if we are going to enrich our children.

I agree with a lot of what you say ballsed but I'm not sure compulsory participation in structured activity is necessary. If kids have the right values instilled then being let loose to descend on the chippy doesn't sound terrible. Presumably they are similarly allowed free roam after school at either school?

Yes but equally, at 3pm herds of them leave the state school (and head for the coop) whereas at the private options much more extra curricular participation is encouraged.

I don't believe quality of teaching is necessarily better in the independents. In my social circle there is a lot of talk about going state to hopefully get lower uni offers.

On the flip, anecdotally there are huge anxiety issues in the selectives.

To be absolutely honest it feels like quite a lot of overthinking is going on among the middle classes wrt education anyway, and I don't pretend not to be guilty of this myself. You can't guarantee your child an easy school ride whatever you do and to go state in the hope of a lower uni offers seems a bit odd as presumably a lower offer would only transpire if the state school in question did confer a disadvantage. In any case I am case in point that high academic achievement isn't a golden ticket to a happy life as I have loads of stresses in my life despite stellar qualifications. I think that there's a lot to be said for going to your local school, supporting it and your child to the best of your ability and seeing where life takes them.

"Contrast with the state school where they are allowed out and descend on the chippy"
A sideline-but thisbis by no means the norm in state schools-and I am pretty sure OFSTED would be interested from a safeguarding point of view.

I think it is simplistic to say that the provision of lunchtime clubs is nothing to do with money. Apart from anything else, there needs to be enough spare staff to run them. State schools just don't have the capacity.

Re the Corbyn reference
Even left wing people in this country might not support more equal housing or at least housing according to need because they may live in houses which are more than enough for their needs.

"In my social circle there is a lot of talk about going state to hopefully get lower uni offers."

Blimey. That's pretty dim!

Really dapplegrey???

Oh well, well done for shoehorning in a bit of Corbyn bashing! How big is his house, by the way?

@BertrandRussell no it's not. It's ridiculous but unfortunately true. I know of kids that went to the same state secondary where one stayed for sixth form and one got a scholarship to very good independent. Both from similar financial (middle class) backgrounds. Have gone on to study same subject at same uni (Exeter). The one that got the scholarship had a higher grade offer.

It's well known and it's happening right now and it's not just those at so called disadvantaged schools.

"It's well known and it's happening right now and it's not just those at so called disadvantaged schools."

Have you actually got any proof of this happening? I know some universities make contextual offers, but you don't get one just because you're at a state school! Are you sure you aren't getting this from the same source that says state school children are "let out" at lunchtime?

I saw the kids at the chippy myself. I was shocked as I thought that sort of thing belonged in Grange Hill. I don't know about the contextual offers to be honest - but the postcode I grew up in would have get me one today apparently.

I had one child who went to private we could just about afford it. The second went state school as not academic and all the private schools selective entry.

State educated child much better adjusted.
Private educated anxious sense of entitlement BIG mistake !

"I saw the kids at the chippy myself. I was shocked as I thought that sort of thing belonged in Grange Hill. I don't know about the contextual offers to be honest - but the postcode I grew up in would have get me one today apparently"

So you saw some state school kids at the chippy at lunchtime and extrapolated. OK.

And postcodes do not give contextual offers.

We used to go to the chippy at lunchtime at my comp. We weren't allowed off the premises until the 6th form, but did anyway. Not sure what's shocking about it though tbh. And universities have always given different offers for the same course - I always thought it was based on how much they wanted a particular applicant?

To be fair it looks as if postcodes are relevant to contextual offers at Bristol at least, and attendance at certain schools:
www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/entry-requirements-qualifications/contextual-offers/

Att DC's comp, Year 11 prefects and Sixth form are allowed off site at lunchtimes. My own DCs happen not to go - they have extracurricular activities at lunchtimes - but the ability for certain older students to leave the site for 50 minutes doesn't seem to have a particularly terrible effect on its A-level and GCSE results, not its Progress 8....

I'm still a bit puzzled as to why kids going to the co op after school is so terrible. Presumably they weren't ram raiding the place

Can we please calm down about contextual offers? Frankly if you've been brought up in care and went to a crappy comp, fair enough. Jeez give some poor kids a break, or shall we just keep them down and in their place?
Personal experience - just good enough comp in the SW. just before my DC started the ucas process it was performing poorly enough for some
Courses at Bristol to give contextual
Offers. Medicine was one. One student got in after a contextual
Offer but guess what? He jumped the standard offer anyway. His year was a well performing g year so by the time my DC came along the contextual
Offers were stopped.
Parents I know who send their kids privately go on about contextual offers like they're handed out like candy. They are not. They are rare and imo well deserved and a good way of balancing out opportunities.
My DC wouldn't have got them anyway I suspect bc me and OH have degrees.

Thanks for the pdf link on contextual offers @longestlurkerever - shockingly even the "outstanding" and highly sought-after schools in our city seem to qualify.

Why shockingly? It's not just the school that's factored in. It's some
Of the other eligibility factors listed.
My DC's old
School is back on the list (rightly imo) yet 3 and 5 years ago respectively they weren't given contextual
Offers for Bristol. No matter they were aiming higher anyway (and weren't given contextual
Offers to those places either!).
I think it was bc you also have declare whether your parents went to uni.
And we did.
I just think it's fair enough.

Yes my school and DH's are on the list, but our postcodes aren't and most people attending the schools would have the same postcode.

On the other hand I did have an ABB offer to do law at Bristol which was lower than my other offers so perhaps they used this data even back in the day? Who knows? The point is it's based on evidence that people who get in on contextual offers do comparatively well once they are at university so it's fair, surely?