To send only one of two DC to private school?

[Anotherimaginativeusername]

Quite a dilemma. Please bear with me.

As with most parents I’m sure, a fundamental principle we apply to our parenting is equal treatment of both our DCs. Christmas gifts, clubs, clothes, discipline: we are careful to treat each child equally in every respect.

And here’s the dilemma. Our two DCs are very different. Both are primary school age. DC1, academically, is profoundly gifted, sensitive, with a small circle of good friends, periodically gets bullied, and is often miserable and bored at school. DC2 is academically average, very sociable, friends with everyone, never has any hassle, loves being at school.
One of DC1’s friends left. The parents were able to put the friend into a very well regarded private school. Friend appears to be thriving in this new environment, and the parents of friend rave about this private school, saying how well suited it would be to DC1.
We can’t afford to send one child to this private school, let alone both, however it has come to be that this private school may be willing to take DC1 without fees on account of their academic abilities. We are due to meet with them soon to discuss.
We are really torn, finding it impossible to resolve the conflict between allowing DC1 the opportunity to flourish, versus maintaining equal treatment of our two DCs.
So, would it be reasonable or not to allow DC1 this opportunity; an opportunity that DC2 - barring a lottery win - will never get?
Would it be reasonable or not to deny DC1 this opportunity to thrive and better fulfil their potential ?
Would we be bad parents to send DC1 to private school, while keeping DC2 in state school.

50% scholarship for 7 years also sounds improbable. But even 50% off £100k would still mean OP would have to pay £50k plus extras for one DC.

Yes it would be a 50% scholarship unless it was a means tested bursary.
You can't possibly know that. There are hundreds of private schools in the UK.

Yes I corrected that. Yes we have no idea but we do know scholarships can not go over 50% for tax reasons (benefit in kind). It may be a bursary the OP it speaking about.

But if that is the case the other child should also be able to have a shot at a bursary.

Yanbu op the circumstances are that your older dc is being offered a funded place ,your younger dc is not so you are not treating them differently at all.
Take the offered place as your son will flourish being stretched more .
Please don't worry about the younger one,when they are old enough explain the circumstances if he is interested.Chances are he will be happy where he is and not envious of his db going to a school where there is extra school work.
Try not to worry.

FWIW we did this. I don't hold with the idea that you choose a school that is a good fit for DC1 then all the others have to go to the same one.

Quite by accident DC1 ended up at a private secondary school on an Assisted Place. We were in a Grammar area and the primary Head was spectacularly unreasonable re secondary, so when DC1 was offered we cheekily asked if they had a place for DC3 (similar personality). They did.

DC2 went to the local secondary, with all his friends from primary and when he moved on we took the opportunity to move DC4 (also suffering from spiteful Head) to a different primary.

We had a couple of years with all 4 at different schools - 2 private and 2 state. For each child we picked the school right for them as an individual.

Said children are now in their 30s and as it turns out the one who has done best is DC2, who went to the local secondary. I don't regret what we did, and none of them has ever complained. We felt at the time they thrived by not being X's brother, but a person in their own right. (I went through secondary as Y's cousin, and could never live up to how wonderful she was )

Different perspective.

My parents had the opportunity at age 11 to put me in the local private school on merit. I was badly bullied and so unhappy. The schloarship included everything apart from trips because my best friends parents worked there and tutored me through the 11+ for free (and clearly talked about me to the principal/finance person).

My parents didn't take the opportunity and left me in the local state school because my friends parents wouldn't help them get my brother in a year later.

I deeply resent them for not giving me the opportunity. By 16 I was so badly bullied that I school refused and considered trying to get pregnant so I didn;t have to go anymore. I passed my GCSEs by the skin of my teeth but flopped out on my A-Levels and ended up resitting them in a year so I could get away from the school/town to go to University at the same time.

Meanwhile my best friend moved to the private school and saled through her GCSEs and ALevels, I was as clever as her (her parents said) that could of been me!

If it's free then grab with both hands

DC2 sounds robust and resilient

YANBU - I know people who have sent some kids privately and some state according to different personalities, eg one child who went state was outgoing, a performer and into the arts and a local state school was better for them, one who was particularly gifted academically and they felt needed pushing, for example.

I would send my two to the schools that suit them best and if that was one private and one state, then I would do that.

DSis was at a private school, I was not. It didn't cause any resentment or hard feelings, either between us or with our parents. It very much depends on how the family handles it, I think - and ensuring that opportunity is given to both, rather than just one (so, equal opportunities for extra curricular activities, for example).

Of course you’re not being unreasonable. You’re choosing the best placement for each child. Private schools aren’t “better”, but they usually have smaller class sizes. I have family members who both went private their whole school lives. As adults they’re doing the same jobs as their friends who didn’t.

If the placement is better and will suit one child more of course you should take it as you would if it wasn’t a private school.

My 2 siblings went private and I did not - academically I did the best. However, it was the right decision for both of them and would have made jot all difference in my grades but cost a lot of monies.

At the time it did not bother me - my parents were very clear that the fancy private school trips were not an option to my siblings which I know annoyed them but c'est la vie.

Move on 35 years and my parents have passed away and the estate split equally 3 ways - bar two things. One is gorgeous and of little value and I will never sell. The other is butt ugly and has turned out to be quite valuable and we were all always on at them to chuck it away. This one I will sell and one of my siblings is aggrieved that I got more in physical objects and is not even aware of the value and to be honest never will be told by me!

Sometimes you can not win. I now realise why they never threw it away because both my parents told me and they obviously knew its value this was my school fees.

Do what is right for the child but ensure that the elder does not become superior because of where they are at school.

I would absolutely send your child there as they would have a scholarship. We load academic prowess with so much that it doesn’t warrant, imagine that child A is incredibly good at ballet, but child B has no interest, would you feel worried if child A got a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School ?
Or music ? A choral scholarship? A sport ?
I think children like to be seen as the individuals they are. I know families where one child has more musical ability, or artistic ability, or sporting ability etc. The siblings don’t resent it.
Leaving one child unhappy and less fulfilled to stop the other feeling jealous seems insulting to the other child and unfair on the extremely clever one.

My DS1’s scholarship offer was £1000 per annum for the senior department at his current prep. For background, he is top of the top sets. We declined and he is going to a super selective grammar instead. Previously, his school was offering scholarships up to 40% but they have really tightened up this year.

Here in Yorkshire fees are around £12k per year for each child.
DD has a 25% scholarship and DS gets a 5% sibling discount.

For no please don't do this, I have some very good friends now in their mid 40s who still to this day harbour resentments over their siblings going private while they didn't.

For context it was the girl in the family who got a scholarship and the boy, my friend who stayed state. He worked had had fun great person and is now doing a fairly well paid manual role, his sister got fantastic grades, went to uni, had an amazing career and a totally different lifestyle of London friends, wealthy and then met and married her banker husband.

Honestly it's extreme the differences in them financially but he rightly so is still bloody livid 40+ years later, it destroyed their friendship, split them friend and socially and his sister won't or can't regonise her privileges and looks down on him.

I've spoken in length to him as I had a similar dilemma with my sons and I've got two years left of paying fees as I chose to send them both based 100% on talking to him.

For me it's both or neither.

Yanbu and I would think that your son would understand that it is not favouritism as you're not paying and its a unique circumstance down to ability. Do what's best for your dc happiness, grab the opportunities made available to you. And congratulations :)

@ElleDubloo

Dragging down your DC1 in order to keep DC2 happy - that’s everything that’s wrong with this society.

Completely agree with this.

Op, from reading this thread, the issue seems to come from how parents treat the children when they go to different schools, not the schooling itself or the children's view of their school. So if there is no favouritism or over-compensation in any way, then likely they'll be fine whatever happens.

Of course you send DC1. They’ve got the opportunity not because of something you are doing (paying), in which case you should do it for both, but for an innate talent THEY have, which can’t be “equal” because it can’t be replicated. What if DC2 auditions and gets in to a prestigious drama company, or does successful trials for the local football club, or has his painting entered into an art competition, are they not going to be allowed to do these things because DC1 can’t?

The equality you are giving them is one of opportunity. You’ve obviously been savvy enough to find this opportunity for DC1, so when the time comes I am sure you be will be savvy enough to lean in to opportunities for DC2.

She has earned this opportunity and it would be wrong to stop her benefiting from it. If you had to pay, I would have said YABU to send her, but a scholarship is something she has had to work for and earn.

If DC1 has got a scholarship then I would say it is fair be you're not paying. We have 6 sons and only one got a rugby scholarship for his sixth form at a boarding school. The others don't begrudge that at all . Although you need to be aware they will be mixing with some VERY wealthy people. The son who had the rugby scholarship is the one we see the least of our of all of them . But they may have happened anyway who knows?

My older sister went to a private school on a scholarship because she was very gifted. I had the opportunity to apply for a scholarship too but didn't want to. My brother and sister weren't great academically and didn't get the chance at all.

None of us resent our parents for it. We were from a working class family and it was very clear that the only way my sister could go to the school was through working her backside off to get a scholarship and passing some very difficult tests. She's gone on to be the most successful of the four of us, partly because of her education but mostly because she's continued to work her backside off so we're happy for her, not jealous. If your daughters were both gifted and you only offered the opportunity to one child that would be unfair but if only one is capable of getting a scholarship I think it would be unfair to hold her back.

I would do it, if it's a full scholarship. Would you put one of them into a different (free) state school if it helped them? Then this isn't really that different - you're not paying a huge chunk of cash to give one different opportunities to the other. If both kids are happy and thriving, surely that's the best outcome? Good luck with whatever you decide.

@omgwhy

For no please don't do this, I have some very good friends now in their mid 40s who still to this day harbour resentments over their siblings going private while they didn't.

For context it was the girl in the family who got a scholarship and the boy, my friend who stayed state. He worked had had fun great person and is now doing a fairly well paid manual role, his sister got fantastic grades, went to uni, had an amazing career and a totally different lifestyle of London friends, wealthy and then met and married her banker husband.

Honestly it's extreme the differences in them financially but he rightly so is still bloody livid 40+ years later, it destroyed their friendship, split them friend and socially and his sister won't or can't regonise her privileges and looks down on him.

I've spoken in length to him as I had a similar dilemma with my sons and I've got two years left of paying fees as I chose to send them both based 100% on talking to him.

For me it's both or neither.

You can't generalise from one case. Don't you think in your friend's case this could have happened anyway, if his sister had passed the 11+ and gone to grammar school, and he didn't and went to the secondary modern or a comprehensive school? Or even if they'd both gone to a comprehensive school and she was in top sets and did O levels/GCSEs, then A levels and off to university, but he was in lower sets and left with far less in the way of qualifications?

Even if his parents had found the money to send him to the private school without a scholarship or bursary, would he have been happy there and kept up with the work?

Horses for courses. My children were very different and the options available to us were different too. Our daughter is extremely bright but not an academic all-rounder. She is on the autistic spectrum and at 11 would have struggled with travelling to school on public transport. Fortunately, she was able to go to a very good girls' state school within walking distance.

We couldn't get a place for our son at an equally good state school taking boys. He was an all-rounder and got an academic scholarship to a fee-paying school, which we decided to take up. We were not confident that he would have been happy and would have found friends at any of the state schools in our area that could have taken him, nor did we think he would have been able to carry on working at the pace he was capable of, as we could see from their admissions data that they were getting very few children from the top band of ability (back then Lewisham schools used academic banding for admissions purposes, and this was published). It wasn't an easy decision, but he was happy at school and did extremely well, so no regrets here.

We talked the whole thing through with our daughter and she understood the position. We were clear with her that if it had been the other way around we'd have been doing the same for her (and in fact did pay for her to go a fee-paying school for sixth form, as the A level subjects she wanted to do were only available there).

Doing the right thing for your children doesn't always mean doing exactly the same thing.

I had a friend who was the only one of 5 children not privately educated (they couldn't afford for all and they prioritised her younger brother over her). She still went to university and has a great job yet this has never stopped hurting her.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but you need to manage it carefully.

Sometimes you have to treat differently to treat them fairly. If you have one DC that wouldn't thrive in the local state school, and one who would do ok, then it's not fair either.

Don't emphasise the state vs private bit, stress that you are focussing on choosing the right school for each of them.