Would you send your child to private school if you could afford to?

[Diadora30]

A bit of a dilemma, my DS is due to start school next year, we live in a small village in the south west and the local primary is a 5 minute walk. It is rated as a ‘good’ school by Ofsted (I know ofsted reports are not the be all and end all).

In the next town there is an independent school with a pre prep, prep and senior school. It has amazing facilities and I’ve heard really good things about the teaching, there’s smaller class sizes and the pastoral care is meant to be excellent. It would be a 15-20 min drive to get there.

It would cost about 8% of our income for the next 3 years, and then slightly more as he progressed to higher years.

I don’t know why, but I feel torn. Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

Does it make a difference in the long term? Is it worth sending him to our village primary and then paying for some extra curricular activities instead?

He’s very energetic and loves all sports and the independent school is very sports based.

Most parents, who have come from an indy background themselves, just see it as sending their children to school. They don't compare with state because they're barely aware that state schools exist.

Yup.

The other thing is that if both parents are ft working parents/professionals, they don't have time to send their dcs hither and thither for extracurricular or enrichment activities to make up for the lack of state school provision or needing to paper over patchy before and after school care. Private schools are generally better at catering for working parents, and are more responsive to parental concerns, all of which professional parents are more used to in the workplace.

Dealing with a state school management would be a bit of a culture shock.

Never

I did because I wanted to drop him at 8 and pick up at 8 after work knowing he'd done homework, sport etc. I'm a single mum and need to work.

Your son was in school for 12 hours a day?!

Yes. He's 15!

And has a room of his own to hang out in (well, pre covid he did), all his mates to hang with and three meals a day plus snacks.

If I lived in England and could afford it, I probably would. But it's not really something people do where I live, so even if I could afford it now, I wouldn't do it.

Private schools are generally better at catering for working parents, and are more responsive to parental concerns, all of which professional parents are more used to in the workplace.
This!
plus, my state school certainly was an experience (having your hair set on fire is quite memorable, there were several instances like that) - state schools have very little power to do anything about violence and bullying, apart from silencing the victims

No, and we can afford it.

I'd do state primary and independent secondary unless the state option was poor. I'd maybe move them if they didn't mind during year 4 so hey have time to prep for entrance exams and get to know peers.

It depends a lot on your local options. I'd always assumed I'd send ours to private, at least for secondary, but there is only one local private option and it just didn't suit ours for various reasons. There have been some changes there though since we made our decision, and I'm keeping it in mind for our son if lockdown happens again- I was seriously unimpressed with the amount of support from his state school and he's heading into exam years.

Probably yes for secondary depending on the alternatives, no for a good primary state alternative.

So depends on the schools, but I do think prep to private all the way through gives you a very skewed view of the world.

Absolutely I would - hopefully we will. The reason we haven’t had a third child is so we can afford private school for DS and DD.

No, and I work at a great private school and would get a massive discount. The school I work at is outstanding in both results and extracurricular but I send my children to the local state schools. I also believe that how well a child does is very much down to parental interest together with innate ability and private schools usually cream the top 20-30% off and then are amazed when their results are in the top 20-30%.

Mine started year 7 in the state system. It was a nightmare if you are a single working parent. We live rurally, so there was no public transport. He finished at 3, was supposed to do after school clubs but these were often cancelled with no warning. He could stay in the library until 5. Then I'd have to rely on other mums and it was hell.

Academically the state school was good and there were some great teachers. The kids were nice as well, and local which is a bonus. But when he got a scholarship to the private boarding school nearby, so he could do his sport and be fed and entertained with his mates, I jumped at the chance. It's been a game changer.

Go private all the way.

You’re paying to give your child a leg up in life. Why wouldn’t you?

Parents often choose an independent school because they have amazing sports teams, outstanding drama performances and award winning choirs / orchestras.

But they forget that the reason these are all so good is that they only choose the children who are already excellent at these activities. They don’t have to dilute the strength of their sports team by letting the mediocre play for the A team - they are in the H team and will get a game a few times a year.

At a large independent school, there are plenty children who already are skilled in all these Activities. They don’t have to waste time teaching the basics to children who might not have the potential to excel.

Some schools give sports / music scholarship to high performing children for this very reason - to keep up the school standard. Which is great if that’s your child. But it also means they have to exclude the average child.

Eg The school I attended only allowed children who already played tennis at club level to choose tennis at PE. They spent lessons being coached by our PE teacher (who played at national level) while the rest of us ran aimlessly around the rugby pitches.

There was no opportunity for children to learn to play tennis.

There were 30 in our girls PE class but only 22 could play hockey. As many of the class already played at county / national level , they needed the Practice more than the rest of us. And they had a school match that Saturday to train for.

If you already had Grade 8 in an instrument you could join the orchestra. But there was no chance to learn an orchestral instrument from scratch.

So I sent my children to State schools, even though I could well afford the local well regarded independent school. They all had a chance To try all these things, even though they weren’t very good at any of them.

My child who is an average singer sang in a very good choir for 9 years.

They all took part in drama productions. The Standard wasn’t very high because it was full of mediocre children like them. But they all had fun and grew in confidence.

My not very sport child plays hockey for his school . No, the team aren’t very good but they train and have fun and he gets all the physical mental and social benefits of playing team sport. He loves it so much he’s joined the local club ( who are at the bottom of the league but who cares ).

In primary he represented his school at cross country . He was rubbish but he got a medal for competing so he was happy.

At an independent school he wouldn’t be allowed to pick up a stick Or go on the track. Because the important things is the achievement and reputation of the school , not the welfare of one child.

"I’ve done a search of the independent school on here, and there’s a mixed bag of responses, so that’s also thrown me a bit. With some saying it is not the most academic and students that aren’t particularly sporty are overlooked. So that’s definitely given me something to think about.

There does seem to be a huge amount of enrichment opportunities at the independent school, starting from reception onwards. But also, I suppose there’s no guarantee that the classes are going to be particularly small.

I did say in a previous post that the local village school, has mixed year classes so they tended to be bigger, but is that such a bad thing?

Judging by what I’ve researched so far, the independent school does seem to be very nurturing, and the pastoral care also appears to be excellent. But then, it’s a 20 minute drive to get there, Whereas the local primary is less than a 5 minute walk.

I’m really torn. I do have the open morning next week, so can try to get a feel and ask some questions. It’s a shame that the village primary are not offering tours at the moment, which I totally get of course."

I think the 5 minute walk from home would be the deal breaker for me. My DD's primary was close to our house and it was invaluable for us to be able to have friends round after pick-up, to be able to walk to and from school chatting all the way, and to really feel part of our community. I learned more about my dd's day from that short walk than I ever would have got from her during a drive home. It also enabled me to be able to walk over the road and read with the younger children which is a great way to see inside a school.
I went to a private junior school and had no local friends, and was mercilessly bullied by the other kids for my boater and felt hat. When I also went to local swimming lessons, or brownies, I never knew anyone. Which was horrible actually.
If I were you, I'd save the fee money, and go to the local school, see what your child is capable of, and then reconsider when they are older.

@DelilahfromDevon

Go private all the way.

You’re paying to give your child a leg up in life. Why wouldn’t you?

Because you don’t want to teach your child that money should buy privilege.

Because your child may have experience of a broader cross-section of life in state school, better preparing them for adulthood.

Because private schools are a big factor in the hideous class divide in the UK.

And mostly...

Because private schools are not inherently better than state schools.

Erm many children who attend private schools are not from families that have always fallen in the mc or upper mc bracket

You can soon spot the mc background parents to the none mc background parents

I lived on a council estate and so do some of my family many children are from quite mixed backgrounds (maybe more so in London)

I dont need to send ds to the local state school for him the experience being around children who are less privileged and find it quite patronising that this would be a reason

Only if I could afford it comfortably. Which I can’t.
There’s more to life than school, which of course is very important. But I want to be able to have money for other things too.

@ItsAlwaysSunnyOnMN I dont need to send ds to the local state school for him the experience being around children who are less privileged and find it quite patronising that this would be a reason
Not the case for you but I can assure you in the Home Counties it is far from rare for children to experience life in a privileged bubble. Just as there are disadvantaged children attending ‘dire’ schools who will never get the opportunity to mix with more affluent peers. This is a reality of our country’s educational system.

My siblings and I went and their children and mine and the next generation (all from primary/pre-prep age to 18). I am definitely glad I paid fees. For us we also wanted (as we met in a Cathedral and I sing every day and their father is an organist) things like boys aged 6 and 7 singing very difficult church choral music which you tend not to get int he state system unless you take them to a local church choice. Also I wanted single sex schooling for all 5. Lots of other reasons - I wanted some academic selection even from age 5, a school where most people went to the best universities, other parents who were hugely financially invested in children doing well.

In this poster's case it seems a no brainer as they can afford it and they like the independent school concerned.

The school with the snootiest, cliquiest parents I’ve ever come across was the Home Counties state village infants school that we were at a few years ago. We moved down south to a private school where there is far less snootiness and far fewer attempts at keeping up with the Wimborne-Petersham-Joneses!

Some schools give sports / music scholarship to high performing children for this very reason - to keep up the school standard. Which is great if that’s your child. But it also means they have to exclude the average child

This is not my experience. Everyone gets a match on a Saturday. Of course, there's huge competition for the A and B teams depending on the size of the school, but there is more than one sport, more teams, and of course some boys aren't interested at all.

A good private school will aleays find something your child is good at, and nurture it.