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 personally

No, but then again I'm lucky to have good state schools near where I live. If that weren't the case, I would of course think about it. I have absolutely nothing against private education, just that I see no reason to stretch myself to my financial limits if there were other good schools near me anyway.

Our DD goes to private primary school.
Would have been very happy for her to go to a good local school state but we're just outside catchment.
Also secondary choice is poor and we knew we wanted her to have best chance of getting into local excellent private secondary, so she's at the prep for that school.
Both schools also the closest for both primary and secondary which we liked to have local feel and avoid need to drive on school run.
We were paying for childcare so have redirected that cash to school. We've chosen to do that and that means we prob won't move house soon, whereas friends have chosen to move into the catchment area and bigger house. It's a personal choice about priorities unless you're completely loaded!

We can afford private. We wont be sending DS or DD there - we live in a nice village, the local school is friendly & well run, and all our neighbours children go there. It is rated "good" by Ofsted and its educational attainment & progress scores are good.

In general I dislike private education, but I can envisage a few situations where even I would consider it:

• moving mid year and no space in local state schools
• SEN and needing special provision

If you can afford fees in the uk, you can afford to live in the catchment area of a reasonable state school. Everyone I've ever met who has said they had no choice due to dire local schools has in fact had a huge house.... make of that what you will.

@Pumpkinnose just seen your earlier post. Interestingly we were in SW London, moving when the DC finished school. We felt there was no alternative but independent from secondary level due to dire provision of curriculum and some really awful schools. Primary was excellent.

No. We could and we don't. I don't think it would do my kids any favours to only be with people from very similar socio economic groups to themselves.

Yes.

expecting to fund about half of DS's PhD that he has just started.

If you are needing to fund it, he shouldnt be doing it. Any decent phd is funded, unless either its a) research no one wants (pointless - vanity doctorate) or b) in an over supplied postgraduate field (also pointless, oversupply means it won't boost job prospects any way).

If no one will fund the phd really question why your child needs to piss away 4 or 5 years of their life on it.

My DD attends the indie where I teach. I’m in the secondary end and she is in lower juniors/pre-prep. Because I get a 50% discount it was a no brainer for me. We live 2 minutes door to door to our good village primary and originally I wanted her there so she would make friends locally and we’d all be part of the village community.

However as wrap around care was going to be used every day it was going to be expensive to send her there. About £200 a month less than our monthly school fees. Consequently DD goes to my school for convenience and the fact we wouldn’t have saved much more by going local.

The thing is DD has many more experiences at her school than she would at the local school (my friend’s DS attends so I get a good insight)

My DD does swimming every week (not currently due to Covid though), has 2 lots of dance lessons, guitar and LAMDA lessons As well as being in a range of free craft, gym, sports clubs. She is taught Spanish, Music and Drama by specialist teachers and there are only 11 children in her class. DD is bright and I think would thrive anywhere but at her indie she is flourishing.

If finances were going to be a stretch she would go to the local primary but as we can afford for her to go to indie I look at it as though I’ve relinquished her place for another child to go to a good primary who may not have had the chance.

You have to make the decision based on your circumstances but maybe go for a look around the indie before deciding?

a round trip of 40 mins twice a day is 1 hour 20 mins driving a day, 6 hours 40 mins a week.

Do you really want to spend 6 and a half hours of your week driving back and forth, spending the petrol?

To send your child to a school where his friends could be more than half an hour's drive away and all social arrangements will have to be carefully managed?

My Dc went to a school 5 mins walk away.

The walk to and from school was a lovely social occasion, friends all lived extremely locally, were in the local park, across the road for spontaneous tea time arrangements, and the other parents were on hand to pick up (mutual arrangement) if any of us got delayed on the way from work. We created a close community network - swapping babysitting etc.

There is no way I would swap 'walk to school' for driving 20 mins away if I had a good enough school on my doorstep.

He can join sports clubs outside school.

No I definitely wouldn’t send to private in those circumstances, unless the primary affected the secondary options. Then I would have to consider those.
I would pay for private secondary if I had to (but I don’t as state good here).

Not unless the local schools were dire and even then my instinct would be move. I guess if money was no object then maybe but it's far down my list of priorities. A smart child can help themselves to an education, with support. And my kids are smart.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland well aren't you charming. It depends actually on where it's from re the funding - some institutions are more prestigious than others and even some post 92s have self funding PhD students. He has some and may get more.

We can afford it but won’t for primary, and still debating about secondary. I’d prefer an excellent state school over a private school (but there aren’t that many near us hence wondering about private. Or moving nearer an excellent state school I guess).

@thedancingbear this is the situation where we are. The average income of the two excellent state primaries is significantly higher than it is the majority of the independent schools. Its a disgrace, especially as the parents of the kids in these 2 schools are very verbal that they would never sent their child private. But a school that requires a house for (minimum) 700k and where kids who don’t fit (i.e. parents don’t donate enough) get bullied out promptly is apparently fine....

We do and for us, it's worth it. The small class sizes, ethos and huge importance placed on good behaviour and hard work definitely make it worth while as our DC are really thriving.

Yes absolutely.

My dc went to state primary and then secondary private. I think local primary has advantages such as local friends but private for secondary has been so advantageous. The school have more teaching time to spend on the pupils, they know the children well and they are incredibly supportive to parents. When we joined the tutor just wanted me to know he was available anytime as I didn't contact them..I had been state school trained so wouldn't contact unless serious. We get such regular and meaningful progress updates whereas my friends believe they can't trust the progess reports, especially in the earlier secondary years.

I feel fortunate and my dc are aware that they are lucky. It is painful when the termly bill comes in but I have allocated the money and feel it is a positive investment. I think it depends on the provision in your area, ours has enormous state schools where the children are often lost in the system. A previous area had smaller schools which I would gave been happier with.

No because DS went to an Outstanding small village primary school and has just started at a top Grammar school. If he hadn’t got into the Grammar school, we would have sent him to a private school as the closest 2 to us were very rough and in special measures (although we’ve now moved and the 2 closest high schools to us now are very good). DS’s Grammar school gets staggering GCSE and A Level results, far higher than the private school that his friend has just started. The head teacher also came from the private sector and tries to give the boys a ‘private school’ experience. We only had chance to look at one private school before we found out that DS had passed the test and it was awful. The children seemed to have no confidence or spark and the teachers were only interested in talking to old boys and girls. We live on a small cup-de-sac with lots of other children of DS’s age. They all go to the local high school and DS has no trouble mixing with them, the only downside is that they are home by half 3 and DS isn’t home til 5.

My DD is at private secondary, I did nt think it was necessary for primary. Our catchment primary is great, DS is still there but will be going to private secondary next year if he passes the entrance exam. Our catchment secondary is dire. We have made sacrifices to afford this though so didn’t even consider it for primary. DDs private secondary has a primary, about 75% of her year were there so I did worry about her making friends when so many of them already new each other and there were only about 20 new girls for secondary. It hasn’t been a problem though she has made loads of friends, new starters and those who were in juniors.

We could but don’t because the one private school where I live doesn’t offer really anything above the state schools and using a private school further away would impact on our family life. The schools at both primary and secondary level are great. If we lived in a different area where the schools aren’t so good, then I would have to rethink carefully.

Personally, I wouldn't put my child into private school until they were in secondary school. If after a year or two of public primary school I felt that a private school would benefit them greatly (eg. my child was advanced, they would benefit from smaller class sizes ect.), then I'd definitely consider it.

I wouldn’t pay for primary but if we could afford it would pay for secondary. DH went to a really good public school but the fees are 30% of our income so no chance!

No, I don't really subscribe to that way of thinking and we can provide additional support at home if needs be, but I appreciate having the choice.

Yes, my DC are in private schools.

We had originally thought that we’d do state for primary and private for secondary but I spoke to a number of people who advised against it for various reasons and we decided to do it from the start.