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.

I wouldn't because I'm not convinced the value they add is worth the spend.

There is no good evidence that private schools help children achieve better once you take confounding factors into account. Most but not all are academically selective, which skews results. Many children at indies round my way have private tutoring on top. And some (definitely not all mind) do so much spoon feeding that when the kids get to Uni they struggle a bit. I've recently been doing lots of recruitment. Although these forma are blind ou can usually tell the kids who have been to private because they list a raft of IB/ iGCSE equals all at very high grades. And then go on to get a 2:2.... Not all of course. Some really do excel throughout.

I think a lot of the supposed advantage of independents actually comes from wider family resources. Many of the high-achieving impressive job applicants have done a string of international unpaid internships as well as having been privately educated. Obviously this requires family money (or working another job alongside the internship but I 'd bet in a high proportion of cases, the former....)

When considering secondary for our dc there was not one state secondary in our borough offering: triple or three separate sciences, more than one MFL (limited choice), or classics. Neither of the church secondaries of choice sent a child in my dd's year groups to Oxbridge.

My DC were mid-ranking in terms of lifestyle at their London day schools and we could well afford it. Our only error was to send dd to a state cofe secondary for two years but that was largely due to a new head with a rather strange ethos and a particularly dysfunctional cohort.

Cost for two in London At it's height was £40k after all expenses and from net income. We have fully funded our DC's HE to date and are expecting to fund about half of DS's PhD that he has just started. Accounting for 2 three years degrees plus living expenses at c£110,000, and two Masters at about £44,000 between them, we are banking on a total cost of £350,000 excluding PhD's prof equals etc.

If money is an issue I would venture it may be better spent on 6th form plus.

Finally because money/status is alluded to so often, we found the independents much more grounded in the context of clothes and bags and generally want it than the secondary dd attended.

If parents can't afford the a school trip every other year and the sports kit and can't have holidays themselves and life is a perpetual scrimp I would say they can't afford it. We budgeted £2.5k per child for music, trips, lunches, lost books sports equipment, etc.

There was the odd braggy idiot but they were mostly put in their place. My mother, however, is still irked that we didn't have a pony and regularly carps on that we have deprived her. Not a great deal of livery in zone two but she can't see it. So, no it isn't all ski-ing, ponies and winter sun.

Yes 100%. For many reasons already listed. I would start from reception too if money was no object, but from secondary if I needed to choose a phase.

Depends on the area. The local state school, and the local grammar school both have much better results on our local private school so I wouldn’t personally.

No. It’s against my morals.

No, probably not, there's no private schools in our county anyway so they would have to board or I would have to drive an hour to hour and a half or so each way so I'm not interested in that. And I'm not moving either.

Yes but they have special needs so wouldn't be welcome.

Thankfully ds dad can afford to pay

The state schools in our area are not good not far away they are excellent but to live in the catchment area is very very expensive

Ds gets to mix with many from different social backgrounds as we are from a working class background (as many in ds school are) and I’m ethnically mix so we tick that box too (though ds school very ethnically mixed more so that the state in the nicest area around here which is certainly not representative London)

No, I don’t believe in private education, my DC have went through state school (in Scotland) and onto university, one still to go.
Fortunately we don’t have the tiered system England has which is very divisive and leads to schools no one wants to attend, whereas if ppl attended their local school they would level out. I couldn’t be bothered with the faff of this applying for schools.

@Emeraldshamrock
This is PRECISELY one of the reasons I would never consider private for my child/children.

I’m a teacher and state primary and state secondary are my preferred choices.

We were going to send ds to private school, mainly for the smaller class sizes. Then we moved house in June and discovered that both the primary schools in our catchment have a total of

We have used state primary and secondary and DD has done very well. She has just started at a private sixth form with a scholarship and is loving it. I will be interested to see how different it is to state school.

OP it completely depends on the particular schools in question, and your child.

What are the class sizes in each? What are the staff ratios? If the state classes are much larger (round here they are 30+) will your child be ok in such a large class?

Does your child need any sort of extra help? You may not know this yet of course. Sometimes state schools are better at spotting and accommodating additional needs - however if these are not severe there may not be the funds for any help. Whereas private schools vary widely, some are great with SEN some are awful.

What is the after school childcare like, if you both work? Some parents choose private because it can give wrap around care.

How important are extra curricular activities to you? Private schools will usually offer lots of clubs on site whereas for state you would need to find these things separately and transport them to/from the activities

Do you want the DC to go to the secondary that the prep school feeds?

State schools for me. I’m sad that only children from privileged backgrounds, and I’m including those whose parents have to make sacrifices, can access better sports facilities, buildings and smaller class sizes. I want this for all children.

@OhtheRoses if it was still “only!!” £40k I might be more inclined but fees are go one way and that’s up. And having done Oxbridge myself I know it’s far from the be all and actually the majority of the most successful people/my friends/nicest were state school. If your child wants to achieve they will.

It would depend on the school and the child for me.

I disagree with the narrowing of the curriculum and endless testing in the state sector so would go private if I could afford it and they were offering a really broad curriculum with lots of wider opportunities.

Without a shadow of a doubt but only if I knew I could afford to send all my children throughout their entire school career. I wouldn’t send them to private primary and then state secondary. Although I might do state primary and private secondary.
It gives them so many opportunities and goes way beyond what they’re taught, by whom and where.

@UncleBrynsfishingtrip - you are entitled to your opinion in a democracy but it is not a superior opinion because you happen to be a teacher. Although MIL is the same: went to grammar school and loved it, never questioned a thing. Went to teacher training college and never questioned a thing. Went to teach at the same school for 40 years (with an 8 year maternity hiatus) and never questioned a thing or any initiatives including dropping phonetics in the 70s and allowing free writing.

Teachers don't necessarily know best and she blatantly ignores the fact our dc went to private schools and have soared academically because of it.

DH went to the state comp that was a grammar until two years before he went. He did get into Oxbridge and bitterly remembers having to brush up his written grammar to meet the bar and when he entered law felt at a standing start due to never having learnt Latin and had to catch up fast. Two things that made him determined his dc would have a more rounded education.

It’s not as straightforward as state vs private, I would visit both schools and see what you think.

My DD was offered a state place in an enormous primary school with an intake in reception of 60 children who were split into 2 groups but taught in one enormous classroom. There were 2 teachers and 2 TA’s but it seemed so chaotic and noisy I couldn’t see how anybody could learn anything! We decided to send her to a small non-selective independent instead, it’s a lovely school with about 300 pupils in total (kindergarten - year 11) with a great family atmosphere and she’s doing well there. It’s not a ‘posh’ school, I’m a single parent working in the NHS and don’t feel any pressure to keep up with anyone.

@pumpkinnose I quite agree. It was £40k for two in 2013! I always say on threads about the cost that DS's first year at an independent when he was 8, in 2002, cost £9250 including all expenses; his final year in the upper 6th came to £21,500(ish).

My are grown up now but if I could have afforded it I would. Both have done really well, ones currently doing a phd in a science subject the other is nhs professional and came out of their local high schools ok.
My reason why I think I would have is that I see such confidence in privately educated kids, I'm sure there's exceptions to it but their ability to public speak and be sure of themselves is something my children lacked, partly with having to survive the geek teasing and general environment. (One went to a rather rough high school)

No.

My DDs are grown up now and have done a mix of schools. We’ve moved lots and they went to 7 schools between them.
For this reason we chose mostly private because they tend to be more used to children who have moved curriculums and have the resources and time to help the children adapt. It’s also easier to get children into a private school than an oversubscribed state one. We also wanted single sex education which wasn’t available in the state sector where we’ve lived.
Our experiences have mostly been positive, apart from one school (not in the Uk) which was filled with over privileged, out of touch with reality girls, the schools have had a good mix of cultures and backgrounds and mostly the girls have been socially aware. Wealthier families still have their fair share of troubles!
I don’t understand why people think kids who go to private schools don’t mix with local children - ours did Brownies, Scouts, drama classes, dancing, swimming.. with children from the local area and those children used to be in our house as much as the school friends. Ours could also walk to school at most of the places we’ve lived. In fact, the two state schools they went to were the two I had to drive them to.
That said, most of my friends’ children have been state educated (they were sensible enough to stay in one place for their children’s entire education!) and I can honestly say that there’s very little difference between them now they’re adults. They’re all articulate and confident, all have degrees and most have good jobs. The school they were at is an excellent school though - well funded, in an affluent area with interested parents, so maybe that’s the difference.
I think I’d advise you to look at all your options carefully and decide which you think will fit your son best. Don’t forget that private school fees go up every year and salaries tend not to go up at the same rate.
I remember returning to the UK and paying £3k per child per year. Ten years later we were looking at over £10k. It’s not an inexpensive choice!

I would have for secondary, though not for primary. Couldn’t afford it for all four, so did the next best thing and was more than happy to ferry them around to an outstanding secondary school outside our own town.