To send my child to private school at age 4?

[confusedaboutworkingandparenting]

Wise Mumsnetters, please talk to me about private school in the UK. Or public school? What is the difference? As you have probably gathered already, DH and I went to comprehensive schools and have no experience of education options in London or the independent school system in the UK. Other children is unlikely to be a factor here so we could probably afford to pay for one to go, although of course it would involve some sacrifices. We have some good private schools nearby to us and none of the "local" state primary schools are actually that convenient, so all options involve a bit of a trek. So talk to me about private school? Is it worth it? Is it really that different to state school? When is the best time to send them? If you could afford it, would you do it? And why? And will I inadvertently turn my beloved child into a posh tw*t?! Also the holidays are so long! What do you do with them then! Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences and wisdom.

They do just go to their local school. Catholic schools here are just regular schools. You get a choice of two - a catholic school and a non denominational school. There is no applications, no second choices - you get into whatever school you choose, out of the two you are zoned for.

Religious near me (I’m
in England) means selective.
Out of interest I checked free school meal stats. C of E 8% free meals, Academy 31% on free meals - Both schools in same postcode!
C of E needs child christened & weekly attendance at church yr 4 & 5.
Results are majority of C of E get 5 pass GCSE’s v 20% at the Academy. It’s that stark.

Private school can be truly wonderful.

However, I coped at state for a bit. (Well I coped at one but not another).

It depends on the school exactly. Also it really, really does have to be fair between children and I’d rather start at state then move to private later on. The other way round isn’t great!

you need to do all the open days.

Another thing for OP to consider is:

COST THE SAME AS NURSERY AT THE TIME.
If you're going to have to pay for before and after school care, but the private school offers this for free (alongside afterschool sports, choirs, drama, music, clubs etc), this could be a major consideration.

I went to a private school for sixth form with an attached nursery and primary school, and several of the parents in nursery or infants sent their children their because it was cheaper for more hours than other private nurseries or childcare options (open 7:30 am- 5;30pm with no more cost than if girls just attended core school hours of 8:40-3;30ish).

OP, I'm sending my 4 year old to private school (and his little brother next year too). The main reasons are good wraparound care (most kids stay) and half the class size of the local state school. However, I wouldn't have even considered it if I didn't work in a private (senior) school - we get a 50% staff discount if we send them to this particular private prep school. We can afford it but it will mean some sacrifices.

You don’t live somewhere with very sectarian roots. Religious segregation in schools in Scotland is a really contentious issue. But no, most certainly not selective.

My (large) town has two non denominational schools and two catholic schools. All are run by the local council. There are two catchments in the school - one catholic and one non denominational school is in each catchment.

It’s far more simple and more fair, IMO, than the English system, because there are less layers.

I can see your point but let's face it, when it comes to one's own children we as parents tend to do what we think is best for them.....sometimes that means private school.

Private schools do also relieve the burden on the state system.

They absolutely do not relieve burden - schools funding is per capita. Plus, affluent parents can often assist with revenue streams into schools (for example, more able to participate in fundraising, which benefits all pupils)

If private schools were scrapped, we would home educate. I certainly wouldn't place DC in the already bursting at the seams local primary. Even though we live in a leafy, desirable, middle class area. I don't believe the state system is fit for any child to be honest.

Girlswithgoodbodieslikeboyswithferarris · Yesterday 22:33

They absolutely do not relieve burden - schools funding is per capita

Please would you explain what you mean?

Surely, if say 5000 children all at a private school in a certain city changed to state funded schools, the state would need to find whatever per capita amount £X and multiply it by 5000.

They’d also probably need to build some more schools.

Therefore, the 5000 in the private sector are relieving the state sector of a burden.
(Bearing in mind that those children are not receiving education vouchers from the state to use for a school of choice and meanwhile their parents are still paying taxes.)

Not really. Education budgets are set by local authorities, but that is divided up between schools based on how many pupils go there. Decreasing pupil numbers actually means larger classes, less teachers, less resources (because collectively buying resources is cheaper in larger quantities, and resources eg textbooks, non consumable stationery can be shared between multiple classes)

So if a school got £2k per pupil and had 1500 pupils, they would have a budget of 3 million, but if 300 of them went to the private school, they would only have £2.4 million. They might need to cut two teachers out, meaning class sizes increase, and each department has £1000 cut off their budget, so no textbooks, no new pens, no technology.

Decreasing school roles is a big, big issue for schools - whether that is due to a decrease in birth rate, out migration, or people not sending their kids to their local school.

I agree with this. Before we chose private (and we did so because the local schools were massively oversubscribed and one of mine has additional needs that makes him sort of fall between the gap of mainstream and special schooling) we did some open days at the local primaries. The 'best' rated primary school in our catchment had students sitting on the floor of the changings rooms to have their English lessons because there LITERALLY was no room. It was a massive eye opener to me and I was absolutely shocked. I do feel that by not adding 2 children to that was relieving that school of a burden. We are in an area where there was not alot of choice. Many people in a similar situation to us just moved to a better catchment area, but that was not the right decision for us.

There were many many reasons why we chose a private school- but it boiled down to being the best for our child. And thankfully we could afford it (although if the propsoed VAT on fees goes ahead we won't be able to). None of it was about ensuring university places- DS1 is very unlikely to go to university with his needs, but we will see what comes out in the wash.

There are 2 private schools in our area. One is not that good, and the SEN provision was limited. The one we chose is non-selective, has a 20% pupil population with SEN and has fabulous pastoral care. It also does loads of extra curricular stuff which DS simply cannot access, but those opportunities are there for those who can.

You get good and bad people everywhere. I live in an area where there is a lot of "dodgy" new money. We didn't want our DC mixing with drug dealers and aggressive/questionable business men, so they went to the local comprehensive along with all the other NHS and Police families.

They all did brilliantly at GCSE and A Level. They value wildlife more than Gucci and I'm happy with that.

This.

Also in our area kids in more deprived areas get a higher budget than kids in well off parts of the borough. Which means that facilities are poor/buildings are failing/SEN support is reduced in those schools that are technically good.

That’s not answering the question as to where the money would come from, or indeed the teachers.

also doesn’t address the fact that many parents would not send their children to state school even if private schools were banned, and those that would are likely to buy up properties in catchment areas of desirable state schools, pushing out other demographics. The latter already occurs.

Also in our area kids in more deprived areas get a higher budget than kids in well off parts of the borough. Which means that facilities are poor/buildings are failing/SEN support is reduced in those schools that are technically good.

I think that conflates two different issues.

Some children attract ‘Pupil Premium’ funding as a result of their circumstances - having received Free School Meals for example. This additional funding is intended to in some ways compensate for the disadvantage elsewhere in their lives, and nay be used to provide additional small group support; opportunities such as music lessons; pay for trips / swimming instead of parents having to do so etc. Schools have to account for how thus money us spent in ways that benefit these particular pupils.

Similarly, children with high SEN needs may attract some additional funding eg to pay for 1:1 staff BUT the school is usually required to fund the first few thousand £ of this support.

This means that yes, schools in deprived areas have a higher ‘budget per head’ BUT this is targeted and very much reflects their higher costs due to their intake.

You gave also conflated ‘technically good’ schools with those ‘not in deprived areas’. While it is, unfortunately, true that Ofsted grades have largely reflected intake for many years, and that parental reputation equally favours naice schools in naice areas, in terms of actual quality of education and care, it is not true that schools in deprived areas are ‘not good’ while schools in less deprived areas are universally ‘good’.

The money comes from the councils general budget - they HAVE budgeted for every child who is born in the catchment area - they use civil registration (when you register births) to calculate this. The per capita funding remains approximately the same. So for example, a council knows that (for example) 2000 babies were born in 2020, so therefore in 2025, they will have 2000 children starting school. They also know that in 2025, there will be 1850 children graduating primary school. Therefore, they increase education budgets by 150 children’s per capita across the authority. Then, this money is allocated to the schools in the previous January/February, depending on how many children actually register to the school. But, if 50 of those 150 children never register for a state school, that money remains in the education budget rather than actually dripping down to school level. Some can obviously be used on staff training (authority wide) and employing development officers etc, but from being at the chalk face, I can assure you, I’d rather that money mean that I’ve got 30 kids in my class rather than 33, or that we could have some support assistants, or that I had money to print off resources, or I had enough jotters to give every kid something to write on.

The teachers are already there - they are made surplus. I am at risk of being made surplus myself, right now, because I’m the most recent member of staff to be employed in my subject.

If schools were better funded, there would be no need to have private schools. But as I say, the way it works in Scotland is that everyone in one town goes to either the local catholic school or the local non denominational school - because there are two choices within the same catchment area, the catchments tend to be far larger - and generally speaking, the catholic and non catholic school perform similarly. Obviously there are year by year variations - my local catholic school outperformed the local non denominational school slightly last year, but the non denominational school performed better the year before.

The main issue I can see in England is the extensive reporting on school performance. We don’t have OFSTEAD up here, we don’t produce league tables, and so on. One of the paper does rank the schools from “best” to “worst” - but it only goes on number of pupils achieving 5 highers - which is obviously not a reliable measure of success, and nobody actually pays attention to it. And actually, there are a significant number of schools in the top 100 who are from very deprived backgrounds (there are 240 schools on the list)

It isn’t a set amount per state pupil though it’s more complex so a pupil in a deprived area may get £7500 whereas better area the school are only getting £7000.
explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics

Well put.

We get something similar in Scotland - it’s called the pupil equity fund. It doesn’t need to EXCLUSIVELY benefit those from deprived areas, but it must be designed to specifically target those who need extra funding.

An example would be supported study - pupils from less affluent backgrounds would be less able to afford private tutors, so a school may spend some money on paying teachers to run supported study. They couldn’t say “you can only come if you are poor!”

Another example would be buying laptops and Wi-Fi dongles to be borrowed by pupils who didn’t have ICT access at home. Again, you couldn’t say “you can only get this if you live in a council house” but the assumption would be that the less wealthy would be more likely to take up this service.

So having more pupils from more affluent areas wouldn’t decrease the amount of funding available at all. The funding is done by number of pupils from deprived areas, not percentage of pupils from deprived areas.

Ive worked in one of the most deprived schools in the country, and a very affluent school. I’d sent my kid to the more deprived school any day - behaviour in the affluent school was far worse, and the “poorer” school had more teachers that actually cared.

At a time when school budgets are being slashed and there is a worsening teacher crisis, such funds would not touch the sides.

I understand what you’ve said about Scotland, but again it doesn’t address how said system can be worked. Parents with money are mobile, and if they don’t like the options they have they can move to a catchment area of a desirable school, pushing up house prices and forcing out other demographics. As a result you get certain state schools supported by wealthy parents, not money spread evenly.

Ultimately though, parents are responsible for their own children, and while some are ideological in opposition to private schools, significant numbers do not think they have a responsibility to support state education over their responsibility to do, what they perceive to be, the best for their children.

Have a wee think about why that is.

Schools in deprived areas get extra money to mitigate the lack of money at home.

This money can be used for things like:

-breakfast clubs, to ensure kids come to school with full bellies
-after school clubs, to allow kids opportunities to get experiences that richer kids have their parents pay for, whilst also cutting down the need for after school care
-buying children laptops so they can complete homework
-funding school trips
-buying uniform for kids who can’t afford it
-buying pencils/pens so everyone has something to write with
-running nurture groups
-employing youth workers in schools

I went to a good state primary followed by a mildly selective private school at the academic but not flashy end of the market.

Honestly I think you get more bang for your buck if you leave private school until later. At secondary there was never any discernible difference between the kids who went to a state primary and the kids who'd been to private primary. Some left the private school at 16 and went to a good state sixth form; they didn't seem to do so well as people they'd been academically on a par with at GCSE level.

If you have access to a good state primary, I'd send them there and reassess when you get to the secondary point.

Your last sentence is the crux of the issue. People are individualistic and are willing to tread over other children to push their own children to the top. Which is sad, but not unexpected.

Having looked at the linked page, that is - as I read it - because the calculated allocation includes pupil premium, and other ‘pupil led’ factors - fsm etc.

So it is not that ‘schools in deprived areas’ are unfairly given more funding. It’s that pupils in some schools face many more challenges, and that (a small amount of) funding follows these children in an effort to enable schools to overcome these.

A particularly egregious example I came across was the head of a highly selective school (3% SEN, mostly high performing ASD, and 2% Pupil Premium) complaining bitterly that their per capita income was lower than a nearby near-comprehensive (18% SEN, 37% Pupil Premium) despite regularly raising money from alumni for large capital projects. It’s obvious to everyone that the selective school has many fewer costs in terms of student support and welfare than the near-comprehensive, but he simply refused to acknowledge that.