To want to give my children a private education?

[NobodyKnowsTiddlyPom]

Really need some input to try and persuade my husband!
My three are all quite bright academically and they are all pretty good with music too. Youngest (9) is very sporty as well.

We’ve recently applied for scholarships and bursaries at a local private school and my husband is still very much on the fence about it all.

The two girls (13, 12) have been offered a total of 70% and 75% discount with scholarships and bursaries and the youngest has been offered a total of 55%

I know that my eldest would do well in state school regardless but I think the younger two would absolutely flourish with the smaller class sizes and the sporting facilities on offer.

My husband thinks we’d be better off putting the £15-£20k per year in our pension pots. I’m not currently working but I’m looking for a full time job from September. I’m a teacher so my salary would cover the fees and my mother in law has also offered to contribute £3-£4K a year towards it. His salary is plenty for us to live on comfortably.

DH would like us to sit down with a list of pros and cons for them to attend this school and I’m hoping that mumsnet can help with a list of pros!

OP maybe you can use the argument that if they get a better education they'll be more likely to be successful later in life and not require further financial assistance from you.

@Flemingshat

I think on 80-90k that would be an amount that I personally wouldn't want to sacrifice.

Others will have different views.

I agree. That’s a ridiculous amount to take from that level of income. Totally unaffordable if the OP doesn’t have a pension and they need to support a BTL mortgage commitment.

I went to two state comprehensives - both Ofsted outstanding rated. DH went to private school on a scholarship for a few years then transferred to an Ofsted Outstanding state comprehensive. He was offered scholarships to two private sixth forms but chose to stay at the outstanding comprehensive.
We're both now teachers. I work in a school that is Good-rated school that was in special measures. DH works in an outstanding rated ex-grammar all boys school.
We will 100% be sending our children to private schools. I have zero faith at all in the Ofsted assessment system - I don't believe it tells you anything about a school or its ability. The only thing you know from an Ofsted rating is how well a school know how to play the Ofsted inspectors. For example, I know classes where people raise their left hand if they know the answer and their right hand if they don't - so Ofsted inspectors think everyone knows answers and is engaged in the class. Where students are told to respond to a pre-determined name if a member of staff doesn't know their name so the Ofsted inspector thinks staff know all the pupils.
When schools publish their results, they twist them massively to their benefit. The school where I took my GCSEs had very good grades for a state comprehensive school - they never mentioned on their statistics that if you were going to get below a B in a subject, they'd drop you from it at Easter of Y11. The school where DH works won't allow people to take his subject for A Level unless they got an A or A* at GCSE and they get dropped from it if they get below a B in any of their assessments - and then the school proudly announce that everyone got an A or above at A Level. At my school, you need a C or above to take it at A Level and our grades are much worse, but the truth is that the same student would get a B at A Level at my school and would be kicked off the course at his school - so which is really better for your child?

If you're not stinking rich and not likely to come into an inheritance, have you thought about funding for University. Friends of ours have decided against private school as they wish to save their money to get the kids through University with as little debt as possible, particularly as they are likely to do at least one primary degree and then a Masters. Their kids are bright and the local comp is fine. They think that's a better use of their money than access to social clubs etc.

they don’t even have a school orchestra! Is the most MN thing I’ve ever read.The fact that you think it could/should have one, suggests it’s a thousand times better than any school I’ve ever attended grin. Your kids will be ok either way, they won’t become rude or lazy or fail their exams just because of their school, when their mum obviously wants the best for them.

The OP chose to send her very musical children to a school which no doubt advertised its music provision, school orchestra etc in its prospectus/open evening etc. 'The schools I went to were too poor to even think of ever having an orchestra ' isn't really a comment likely to make the OP say "Oh never mind then - stuff their musical ambitions".

Also, I expect the OP probably wants to send her dc to a school where they'll do better than just 'be ok/not rude/not lazy', whether that ends up being a private school or not!

@JeanneDoe

Can I ask why you would do this
Generally interested and not looking to cause any offence

@randomer I’m not really sure what you mean by that comment. Whose sense of entitlement?

@IsThePopeCatholic I can assure you that pretty much every single state school teacher strives to do the best for their pupils with very limited resources. Most teachers I know spend hundreds on resourcing their lessons each year. It’s not the state school teacher at fault, it’s the government. Those in power need to be held accountable, not those working at the coal face. We have little to no influence in how schools are funded or run. There are many times when I have tried to implement strategies or suggested things in school, only to be told there’s no budget.

Here’s my take for what it’s worth. We’ve done a mixture of state and private, with different DC and different year groups. If you’re lucky enough to have good state options and reasonably able children, I’d say academically there’s not much, if any, difference. But the time, space and energy at a private school brings a dynamism and joy to the school day that I think is very enriching and is sorely lacking in even academically excellent state schools because of the pressure under which the staff are working. So on balance I do think it’s worth it although a very scientific approach to cost/benefit is hard. I also think that the easier home life enabled by DC being able to do all their extra curricular activities on site is huge. Just at the moment I’m working full time and DH is doing all the running around for the DC who are at state schools and when he was away last week and I had to do it I was reminded of how exhausting it is! I would get your DH to be in charge for a couple of weeks and ask him again at the end of that!!

When faced with an unsatisfactory state school or going private, we moved. Not always an option of course, but it worked out well for our child’s education and our finances. We always have resorting to private available and even have a first choice school in our new location, but so far the free school has been excellent.

I'd be cautious about committing to it til you've secured a full time job- the job market in teaching seems weird at the moment, lots of jobs only advertised up to M6 as well.

Would you be better not working and being able to take them to various extra curricular instead?

The level of bursary does sound very enticing for what they'd get for the money though.

they don’t even have a school orchestra! Is the most MN thing I’ve ever read.

DD's state primary school in a not very affluent part of England had an orchestra. They played at the Albert Hall, the teacher received the Classic FM Primary School Music Teacher of the Year award, and she received an MBE for her services to music.

I wonder which schools these are.

Are they top tier academic schools in London or the south east, or are they smaller, less academic schools in another area of the country?

Schools vary wildly in terms of the level of academic performance and how selective they are. In many areas, independents are struggling for numbers and will offer larger bursaries or scholarships to get buns on seats. I think that especially for parents where the decision is marginal, it’s so important to be very clear in the academic performance if the independent school and also what the local state schools offer and achieve too. Lots of independents are actually not that impressive in terms of results and lots of state schools do really well.

When a school offers bursaries and scholarships to these levels, kids are either extremely clever and incomes very low, or the schools are desperate to draw people paying anything in.

To be honest, it doesn’t all quite add up. For incomes at the level mentioned, some bursary could be possible, but it would likely be low, plus scholarships these days aren’t usually high, so quite how the level of discount is reached is unclear. Additionally, offers were made a couple of months ago and decisions about accepting had to be made weeks ago. It isn’t still a decision that is on the table. So it doesn’t all quite make sense to me. Neither does the idea that a big bursary won’t be impacted by someone getting a job. What kind of school makes these kind of offers and at this point well after the school place allocations are finished? How did the buy to let go down with the bursary company too? It doesn’t really all add up and make sense. Standard wording in bursary company documentation is ‘the awarding of a bursary is not considered compatible with the owning of second properties, frequent holidays abroad or significant home improvements’ and it is also stated that both adults are expected to work and release equity in their home. Basically bursaries are not there to fund lifestyle choices. Other parents pay full fees and go without second properties, and expect both adults to work...so schools won’t fund school places where people choose to use their funds to build equity or buy second properties. Op can you tell us more about what you declared to the bursary company and how the 2nd property etc went down.

In normal circumstances where it all adds up and someone is choosing between stretching themselves and taking a bursary or not, I always say, you have to work out the level of sacrifice that is involved in going for the fee based option. Some sacrifice is fine....keeping your car a bit longer, smaller holidays, less home improvements etc. If it’s sacrifice to the level that you can’t put anything into a pension, and fear the car breaking down as you will struggle to pay for it and can’t have any holiday ever, I’d say the sacrifice is too far.

@Diverseopinions It’s very much not hypothetical at all. I just tried to take a screen shot of the offer letter but it proved too difficult for me to delete all the identities etc! We were sent the offer on Friday and have 14 days to let them know our decision.

@lazylinguist
One of the comments I made was a lighthearted comment about the quality of my own schooling. It was made amongst complimentary and reassuring or otherwise constructive comments about the op.

But well done for deliberately misunderstanding me. It just have been difficult to do.

Tell us about the school. Where would it appear in terms of top 20, top 50, top 100, top 200 in terms of league tables?
Where is it geographically?

It isn’t the right time of year for bursary offers I’d any offers at the moment. What kind of school has places still and ones which they can offer with a significant bursary and scholarship unless they have a. Number of empty places and need to get bums in seats and some fees, even if not full fees in?

If you can afford it then go for it, but I’d make absolutely certain there was no danger of the financial support being removed if any of your kids dipped slightly in their achievements. I looked into private school for my kids but was scared off by the “singing for your supper” attitude. It felt too stressful - they basically said if the kids didn’t play in school sports, perform in the orchestra, join the debating society etc etc then they’d have their bursary removed. Too much pressure on me and the kids.

We went for it, on a fraction of your income, no bursary, no regrets. It's a personal choice but I think you have been given an amazing offer and I personally wouldn't miss it for the world

@WombatChocolate We had to fill in a very extensive form and send of reams of paperwork with all our income, bank statements for the last 6 months for all our accounts, house valuations of both properties, pension value, mortgage statements of both, p60s, spending info. Once all that was sent in, we had a visit from the independent bursary company that handles this sort of thing for lots of schools and we went over the figures with even more of a fine toothed comb.
They gave their assessment to the school and the school made the offer. It was the nursery officer who told me that my full time wage wouldn’t make a difference to their recommendation to the school.

Maybe a view from the other side, we pulled our children out of private school and put them into state and only now are they flourishing. Our kids are in the primary phase for context.

Cons for us:

Small class size, no real chance to choose who they wanted to be friends with, it was forced on them because there were only a small amount of children. Everyone waxes lyrical about small class sizes but in our experience it can be a negative.

Low academic expectations in private with no objective measurement. We were very surprised to learn our son was below national average on arrival at the state school because we'd be consistently told he was above average by the private school. Thanks to the state school he's in now he's come on leaps and bounds. Academically he's a different child now and is on a much better trajectory.

Too much emphasis on the glossy magazine activities to the detriment of the basics in my opinion.

More incidents of bullying in private, I personally had to stop 3 boys who had a 4th boy on the floor and were openly kicking him whilst he was on the ground on the playing field with no teacher batting an eyelid! Their new school has a zero tolerance policy towards bullying and is very quick to address issues. Its a world apart.

I really wish I'd listened to my friends who had similar experiences at private. But I thought it was the best option and thought that the state experience would be negative You're obviously a teacher so have a different view, but from our experience it was not good. We are also very lucky we've struck gold with our state school, so appreciate its not the same everywhere.

We have changed our view and will send kids private for 6th form and save money for uni. We will also look to give them a very large house deposit each when the time comes, which we couldn't do if we'd stuck with private. So silver lining for us from a negative experience.

Our state school doesn’t have an orchestra, or in fact any afterschool activities. Those things are often the first to go in a system that is stretched. That might be quite an advantage to you as you won’t be available for private after school clubs etc if you are at work. Also longer holidays allow the option of booking at slightly cheaper times.

@RosesAndHellebores

‘My view is if you have to ask and don't have three/four years of fees set aside then you can't afford it. If that's the case, no point tormenting yourself about what might have been you just have to make the best of it.’

Do private school parents really have 3-4 years worth of fees set aside? For multiple children?

Indeed a silver,if not a gold lining.

Personally I’d say that with 3 children on your (joint) income I probably wouldn’t risk it. For one or maybe 2 children I think I would.

Lots of people make assumptions about both state and private schools.

It’s really worth pointing out again, that all decisions should be based in the schools actually available to your children and not just the private or state labels.

There are wonderful state schools that deliver much better academics and extra curricular than fee paying schools. Some of them have a more academic cohort than almost all independent schools in the country simply because they are state selective and applications for the feee places per place are far in excess of any applications for any independent school. There are also LOTS of very mediocre independent schools too. They might have a fancy uniform and sometimes some lovely facilities, but lots are struggling for numbers and staff and offer a limited range of subjects or have an uncertain future. Some have withdrawn their teachers from the teacher pension in the last year as they cannot afford it and will start to find it much harder to recruit quality staff. Some deliver academic results which are not transparent and which are no better or worse than many local state schools. Some have facilities which are shabby and have lacked investment. Some have lots of difficult and troublesome students.

You have to look at the independents near you and really dig below the glossy brochures to get to the data and the detail which isn’t always obvious or easily forthcoming. For lots of people, moving house to a better state school makes more sense than paying fees if the secondary option is genuinely very poor...but make sure first you really understand the features of the state school and why you think it is so poor and you actually do need to move. If you have 2 or more kids, moving is usually financially wiser than paying fees, but for one it can be the other way round.