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.

In my experience, in my area, private school is 100000% worth the money. It is SO much more than just the academic (though that is leaps and bounds ahead anyway - IN MY EXPERIENCE) it is the exposure to the many additional opportunities that others have already flagged.

We have already said we won't have children until we have enough saved/earnig enough that we could afford to send them to private school at least for secondary upwards.

Our nearest private is 40 minutes away which I think is too far to travel twice a day when homework etc... is factored in. Plus we have Grammar schools 10 minutes away. DD’s grammar is in top 100 schools in country so we are very fortunate. If local comps were no good then we might have gone private.

We did a mixture.
Independent school nursery from 3 years because the option was a playgroup with limited curriculum and resources. The nursery provided French, ballet, swimming, music, lots of interesting activities. They loved it.
We were offered scholarship for our eldest two into preprep but declined as we wanted our children to have a better sense of community and belonging closer to home and linked to our church. There was a very, very good primary that really celebrated achievement, had good parental involvement, offered a well differentiated learning programme and allowed our children to mix with the wide spectrum of society rather than ‘ivory tower children’.

We stayed with state most of the way through secondary because there were better qualified teachers, opportunities to work alongside all abilities whilst being encouraged to stretch themselves and better roots within local community.

Illness meant we decided at a late stage to transfer them to a top full boarding school. Our eldest was already about to go off to university, so did entirely state. The advantages for us was that illness didn’t impact on their learning and achievement and there was no guilt/logistical nightmare around hospital admissions.

They had many advantages in terms of networking, pastoral support and a smoother, more controlled UCAS process with stronger guidance/checking around coursework. They had opportunities not available outside the independent sector such as ongoing support through alumni. They got amazing free holidays from very rich friends! Their accent may have been polished a little but the children locally are usually well spoken anyway so it was just tweaking rather than pure Eliza Doolittle.

What they didn’t get was increased self reliance - they were spoon fed, rather. They didn’t continue to work alongside children of all backgrounds and got a bit smug, if I’m honest. The youngest lost touch with financial reality and struggles now thinking that she is a bit hard done by.

@Veganfortheanimals we are in surrey. other parents who didn’t get a state school placd reasonably close by but only in the awful school either conveeted to catholicism, moved or went private.

Because I want diversity above all else for my son. Ethnic diversity yes but also in terms of everything else. I want his school to reflect the community that he lives in (inner London). A community that is inclusive of everyone regardless of colour, ability and parents wealth.

That’s what we have. A manic, crowded, lively state school in inner London where there is an enormous amount of diversity. His best friends are Chinese, Nigerian and French. It’s awesome and I am so grateful I can give him this childhood.

tomorrow no, there's nothing. There is only 1 state secondary school within a 10 mile radius, and when we asked his state primary what we should do to find the best place for him, they shrugged their shoulders. We've had absolutely no support from the state system at all, TBH. When we first approached the private school about him, they asked about all sorts of (quite simple) adaptations and whether they were in place. None of them were. Even from entrance exam stage, the private school started putting things place - for example prompting him to expand on his answers in exams (apparently this is allowed if they've always needed it through school, so it can go through to GCSE).

We'd been into his primary several times, they were very kind, but just couldn't support him. Their experience of ASD was from a day's training and more extreme needs (full time one on one for example). Having pretty much not progressed at all through Y5, I couldn't take the risk that it would happen again.

Oh, and the DC's city private school is MUCH more diverse , culturally speaking, than the local comp strangely enough. Financially not so much, but TBH, children that go to the local school VERY much stick with their own 'types' - I've not seen any mingling of the naice middle class kids, and those who've come from the less advantaged parts of the city.

I think it just further demonstrates that you can't just claim one is categorically better or different than another - there's so many other factors in play.

Many posters are saying that the state schools their dc go to are better than private school.
In that case why is paying for private school buying advantage if they’re not as good as the free option?

Because the exclusivity of private schooling (let's not forget that only 6.5% of UK children are privately educated) will confer the advantages of being part of an "old boy's network" dapplegrey.

I was recently at a party where a woman admitted to me that she would be sending her child to a particular school because she is not very bright and to succeed in life she will need to make the right connections...

I've not seen any mingling of the naice middle class kids, and those who've come from the less advantaged parts of the city. I agree with this - even looking back at my very mixed state primary - the middle class kids stuck together.

The private schools in our area are far more diverse in terms of ethnicity than any of the state schools.

Lot of kids on free school meals in them missy?

Only ethnicity not income level....

My DS and my niece both have language processing disorders ( wonder if it's genetic, their fathers are brothers) anyway they were born three weeks apart and my niece went to private school for primary and secondary and my DS went state for primary and secondary. My son had tutors in addition to school and so did my niece. In the end they both achieved almost identical GCSE results.

However my DS is very introvert whereas my niece is full of confidence which I believe is a result of private schooling helping her overcome what could be a characteristic of having LPD. But she is socially isolated compared to him as he has a strong friendship group from growing up with his friends around him and is a lot more adaptable around other people from different backgrounds whereas my niece seems quite suspicious and judgemental. He is one of three and she is a second child with a much older sibling from a previous marriage. The older sibling went to private school because her father paid and my in laws did struggle financially to ensure she had similar opportunities but now they admit they don't think it was worth it.

@missyB1 same for us. state schools are not very muxed in teems of ethicity (depending on location there is one massive majority and 2-3 other kuds per year). Private schools are very mixed in terms of ethicity.

I believe in the state system. I think private education upholds the class system. I believe everyone should have access to good schooling and the private system undermines this. I live in an area with very good state schools. There is zero reason I’d send my son to a private school, despite being privately educated myself and being able to afford it.

But Strongmummy it’s easy to say that when by your own admission you live in an area with very good state schools.

It is most definitely not the case that state school children only hang out with peers of the same 'class' as them - we've had years of state experience and our DC hang out in VERY mixed groups - I love it.

Whereas a friend of mine whose DD goes private had another little girl from the private school to tea and the first thing the child asked on coming in was 'what's the square footage of your house?'

Avoiding families like that is a key advantage of state for me!

Interesting point a PP mentioned about private school kids not necessarily achieving much - I went to one of the very very best girls schools (private) in the country and looking at my peer group, only a few went on to high achieving careers. Loads are SAHMs - fabulous of course, but you don't need an expensive education to do that, so what on earth were all the fees FOR?!

@missyB1 - yes you’re absolutely right. But the original question was why you’d choose to send your child to a state school when you could afford private. I’m very lucky in that I have money. I can afford to live in a good area. The state schools are therefore good. So there’s no reason to go private. If I didn’t live in such an affluent area and the state schools weren’t good I’d possibly have to go against my principles. I’d hope I’d pay for extra tutoring rather than going private .....but who knows ....

but you don't need an expensive education to do that, so what on earth were all the fees FOR?!

Less travelling time, small classes, ratio of staff per children, extra-curricular opportunities.

As it happens DD has achieved everything she possibly could have so far, if she hadn’t then it would have still been worth the money because for 9 years she’s been blissfully happy.

Lol @ "cause it isn't fair" Which planet did you grow up on?
Mine went to a state 6th form after private. Apparantely unis like it now. And have a bigger budget for handbags:))) everyone wins!

“I've not seen any mingling of the naice middle class kids, and those who've come from the less advantaged parts of the city.”

How do you know if your kids don’t go to that school?

Loads of mixing in our school, but then housing is much more mixed up, kids who live in a detatched house walk home with kids whose social housing is across the road. And friendships are around interests: a complete demographic mix at the skate park, or in the school soul choir, for example.

I was at uni with people who'd been to private schools, whereas I went to a state comprehensive. I found people from private schools had had hothouse educations but no experience of what the world is like for most people. They tended to assume (possibly correctly) that success and well paid jobs would fall into their laps. They genuinely didn't understand that not everyone has a lot of money, and that hardship is not self-inflicted. They had little experience of people who were not like them, eg different ethnicities, disabled people, not wealthy. So, I admit I haven't got kids. But I don't think it benefits people to grow up with such a limited view of the world. It certainly doesn't benefit society.

My son's state primary school was incredibly diverse in terms of ethnicity but as it was in an area where the average house price is over £1.5m clearly not economically or socially diverse. At the comprehensive school he attends now, which is just a 10 minute bus ride away, the pupils come from very different social and economic backgrounds and my son has made really good friends with boys from lots of different backgrounds.

Not in the UK (an hour outside of NYC) but it would be surplus to requirements to send a child where I live to private school. We live in a wealthy area that also highly prizes the arts. People who send their kids private tend to do so because their child found it hard to focus in a class size of 16-20, or the parents were privately educated and can’t conceive of sending their children to a public school (in the US sense) even though the local schools truly are outstanding.