To ask if you would send a child to a private school only for primary?

[Completelyhypothetical]

The reason I would consider this is because with wraparound care included it would work out the same price as state school plus childminders and or after school clubs.

However would it be then emotionally distressing for the child to be withdrawn?

This is a hypothetical scenario by the way!

@sleepwhenidie oops. no, clearly I meant under £10k per year

but the school fees are £9000 a year

unless you are in a very cheap part of the UK, I'd be deeply suspicious of the quality of education that you'll get for £9k per year

Really? It’s got a brilliant reputation. The fees are much higher for senior school.

Not if you can't pay all the way through primary. I wouldn't move my child halfway through. Also it depends on the school. Our state primaries are outstanding and I'd put money on them being the same or better than the private options.

I live in Kent and it's quite common for children to go to private primary with the plan being that of course they will pass 11 plus strongly and go onto grammar.
Sometimes that doesn't pan out and the child moves to a local secondary to wait out years7 and 8 and try for grammar again at 13. Although some settle to their parents' plans quite well, some have an awful lot of trouble adjusting from private to state.
I think all things being equal (which they're not in your case as you have childcare fees to factor in) I'd throw my money towards secondary. If not year 7 then year 9, if not then then for sixth forms (possibly boarding sixth form).

I have done this OP. Daughters will start state secondary school in September (its a grammar school). About 20 other kids from their school will be starting at the same grammar this year. It was a good primary and the costs overall were low (uniform was expensive but big market for second hand, trips were affordable) the wraparound care in mornings and evenings was free and also ad hoc and the holiday club which ran for a few weeks of summer holidays and every half term was free. Lots of not that wealthy parents there. Not worried about transition to state secondary as loads of others going with them (ought to be alright anyway as they have loads of local friends).

unless you are in a very cheap part of the UK, I'd be deeply suspicious of the quality of education that you'll get for £9k per year

I live in the south pay slightly under £9k a year and the school is amazing!

Please don't even think about it. It would be an incredibly difficult transition.

Please don't even think about it. It would be an incredibly difficult transition

It’s foolish to make statements that are opinion dressed up as if they were fact.

The transition between private prep and state secondary promised could be difficult.

The transition between state primary and state secondary could be difficult.

The transition between state primary and private secondary could be difficult.

Of course it could, equally, be a successful and easy transition.

Please don't even think about it. It would be an incredibly difficult transition.

It’s going to totally depend on the school but my experience is very much that it wasn’t. There was the normal moving from primary to secondary transition but absolutely no issue whatsoever about it being a state school.

I don't think you can compare the transition to a grammar to the transition to a state secondary. A grammar experience is similar to private school in so many ways.

Our neighbours kids go to an excellent private prep (one of the top ones in the country) and mine go to the very good local state primary. We chat a lot about school and so do the kids. As far as I can see they are learning exactly the same things and are at a very similar level of achievement to mine (both sets of kids are very bright). The main difference as far as I can see is that a lot more "enrichment" activities happen as a standard part of the school day at the prep. Our neighbours seem to spend their weekends relaxing and visiting family/friends whereas we spend our weekends running our kids to activities that theirs do as a standard part of the school day.

I went private for primary and state for secondary school. I never had any issues and never resented it. Most young kids don't really understand the difference anyway.

My local private school wraparound card is £14 a day while the local primary school is £17.50 a day. If you can afford private fees which do get more expensive the further up the school you go I would do it. The only comments I hear is when the private kids go to the local secondary is that they couldn't have passed the 11+!

Do I understand that actually you are only intending this for 3 years - R.,1 and 2 (because this is what you can afford)?

I would only consider doing this if your local state schools are separate infant and junior schools. IME as a parent and as a teacher, children who join schools at a 'natural' transition point (start of primary, start of juniors if separate school, start of secondary, start of 6th form) have a MUCH easier time a) accessing the school and b) settling in than those who transition at other times.

Do not underestimate the difficulty of re-entering the state primary system at year 3, just from the admissions point of view, btw. Although Infant Class Size Regulations only apply up to the end of Y2 - so a Y3 class can have >30 children in a class - most schools still have PANs of 30 and so getting in for Y3 will require an appeal. Popular schools may already be highly over-subscribed, and 'I ran out of money to pay the private school fees' isn't a good reason to admit on appeal, so you are likely to be offered a place in a less good, under-subscribed school further away rather than one in a good local school that you might have got into at reception.

As to whether those years at primary are worth it, it depends critically on the schools in question. As a state school, we admit a fair number of children who leave local private schools, and in every case in my memory those have been children who have been behind, of ten dramatically behind, their peers in the state sector - but that is primarily because the private schools locally manage out children who will not look good in their exit statistics at the end of Y6.

In your position I would ONLY go for it if
a) The schools locally are separate infant and junior schools, so transferring at Y3 to a new school is 'normal'
b) You are absolutely confident of getting a place in your preferred sate school at the start of Y3

or
c) You can actually manage it until the end of Y6, and the state secondary has a reasonable number of privately educated children enter every year. Like others, I live in an area where private primaries coaching children intensively for the 11+ is a serious industry, and so the local selective schools have decent sized privately-educated intakes (10-25%) . In contrast, the non-selective secondaries have vanishingly tiny intakes from private primaries.

Make sure you have factored in the extras bill - eg meals, uniforms, expensive trips etc. Ok this is less for primary but adds up. It partly also depends upon if it's possible that by secondary you might be able to go private anyway? I personally would go private if I could go back in time and remortgage as needed, tiny class sizes are so advantageous in the early years. I would not worry about accents, people move around all the time and mine don't sound like their peers

I would also check that you have factored in the extra cost of holiday childcare. Remember that lots of the cheaper, council or leisure-centre run holiday clubs, or those that use state schools as their base, only run during state school holiday times, so you need to make sure that you have your own or family holiday to cover the extra weeks, or else enquire about the costs of holiday childcare run at the school of your choice.

The qualified vs unqualified staff thing with private schools can be a red herring (because, for example, a very highly qualified physicist teaching a class of compliant A-level students in a selective school may not need a PGCE, because they may not need the pedagogical skills, experience of curriculum design, classroom management or differentiation / adjustment for SEN their state counterpart teaching mixed ability Y8s would need). I would enquire, though, whether recently-recruited staff in your target year groups have a teaching qualification or not. I know anecdotally that a local private primary is moving towards a model with only 1 qualified teacher in each year group in the lower years, with the parallel class being taught by someone without teacher training under the 'leadership' of the qualified teacher, as a cost-cutting exercise.

@WutheringTights i think you summed the difference up perfectly. exactly our experience (our kids go to a prep)

The main difference as far as I can see is that a lot more "enrichment" activities happen as a standard part of the school day at the prep. Our neighbours seem to spend their weekends relaxing and visiting family/friends whereas we spend our weekends running our kids to activities that theirs do as a standard part of the school day.

Yes agree with wuthering too, it is possible to replicate a lot of the advantages of private school for less money in the state system but it takes a lot of time and effort on the parents part and/or one of the parents not working / working very part time.

Myself, giveme, wuthering - I agree up to a point.

Some private schools (not all) are a convenient one stop shop for both school and extra-curricular activities at a 'decent' level.

Some private schools (many fewer) offer a few of these extra-curricular activities at a very high level, better than can be found in the local community. Rugby and cricket - traditional private school sports - might be a couple of examples.

However, there are a number of caveats:

• Not all private schools offer a good standard of extra-curricular activities, just like not all private schools offer a particularly brilliant standard of education. It varies from school to school.

• Although private schools offer extra-curricular activities to a 'decent' level, the 'all under one roof' factor, so convenient for parents, can become a straitjacket that may in fact prevent those who excel in certain activities from participating at the highest level. For example, a prep school with 'decent' music but Saturday morning lessons / sport may prevent a really gifted musician from attending the junior departments of conservatoires. Equally, potentially gifted dancers may access basic dance lessons within the usual range of extra-curricular activities but struggle to attend the multiple evening or Saturday classes given by the best local dance schools / associate classes that contain their like-ability peers.

• Those who are gifted, or potentially gifted, outside the 'traditional private school provision' in terms of e.g. sports may struggle. For example, gifted rugby players are much better served than gifted footballers within many private schools, with the long hours and compulsory 'in school' sport preventing the footballer from accessing e.g. professional club academies.

Ah OK so it's not cheaper. Took 5 pages to establish that.

Primary education is the most important part of a child's schooling, so I would. Get the basics and the discipline right, the rest follows.

But be warned OP, you get on this conveyor belt and it is very hard to get off. School fees cost more than the mortgage.

@ cantkeepawayforever agree - however, I don’t want my primary aged child to perform in any sport to the highest level. I want them to be good Allrounders at that age and have fun. Loads of it.
And as with all schools, there are excellent ones and crap ones. Private is not necessarily better, it is important to do homework before choosing (btw, no Saturday classes in any preps around here)

We did this, both DC through independent nursery and the attached primary. No regrets, both have had a great grounding in education, including a head start in French and Spanish.

They are flying in their high achieving state secondary. No issues with transition, but it is an unusual school and there are many children from a range of private prep schools that go there.

myself, I agree. Both my DCs - state schooled throughout - started off with a huge range of different activities.

The thing is, because the provision for everything was in the community, the transition from doing lots of things for fun to doing relatively few things seriously and at a high level was absolutely seamless and essentially involved the same providers. So DD , who started dance skipping round a hall, learns from the same person 11 years later despite having competed at national competitions. DS, who started music in an extremely low-key way, is off to conservatoire in September post-18, having had the same teacher throughout and just gradually worked his way up the county hierarchy of provision in combination, latterly, with junior conservatoire.

It is of course perfectly possible to take the step out of in-school provision at a private school to higher level provision within the community - there are those at DD's dance school and in DS's music groups who have done so. It's just harder to reconcile with school commitments and timetables.