A sibling or a private education?

[Evely]

Posting in AIBU for voting.

DH and I discussing, it came up in conversation with family - we can see pros and cons to both sides so we're sat on the fence.

If you had 1 DC and financially could afford to send them to private school but you couldn't afford to send 2 x DC to private school - would you say it would be better to stick at one DC?

Taking into consideration that the catchment state school in your area is OK but not brilliant.

Yabu - it's more important to have a sibling than a private education

Yanbu - stick with one DC and give them the best education you can

Well, I went to state school, walked there every day and and I can tell you that in 13 years I never once got talking to a random kid from another school on the way to and from school!

My kids both have. They've made really good friends through doing this.

Have two children. Send them to private school for secondary. If they're different sexes they probably can't go to the same private school anyway and boys don't usually go until age 13.

Again, this is a generality and clearly doesn't apply to every child.

And actually many after school care providers for state schools do mix children from different schools. Private school after school care is more normally "in house".

And at secondary school age, these children do "run free".

@redskylight well quite, so that also includes the private school teenage kids who can also go to the park if they want to!

I don't know why you are so hellbent on pursuing the polarised narrative that private school kids live in a bubble and state school kids mix freely with all walks of life?

Why not just accept that it very much depends on the child and the parents and a large number of individual lifestyle choices, working rhythms etc. The people that we meet and mix with are determined by a lot more than where we go to school.

My DD went to a private school. She did clubs at school some nights, and external clubs other days and weekends for other sports. Met people through school and through external clubs.

Not everyone lived as close to school as maybe you would in a catchment, but a lot lived close enough that they could meet and go shopping together etc as they got older. Or they were on the same train line and would meet up.

She definitely didn't live in a bubble of private school friends only.

As she is also an only child, I was committed to making sure she had plenty of opportunities to mix, have friends over and try out different activities. She had a good and varied social life I think.

Everyone's situation is different. I worked 4 days a week, but from home, which made things easier.

I do believe that my DD reached her potential at this school. They don't have a sixth form so she then moved on to a state sixth form, although it is a particularly good one, but it's very large and was a nice stepping stone to Uni.

As long as everyone is happy with their choices for their DC, it shouldn't matter what others chose to do.

I have already said it depends on individuals and I was talking in generalities.

However, based on MN threads there are an awful lot of private school parents who choose private schools specifically so their children can take advantage of the wide extra curricular activities, have everything in one place and mix with the "right" peer group (they are generally but not always less vocal about the last of these).

Private schools are more likely to involve a car journey; state schools are more likely to be local.

Private school days tend to be longer than state school days.

Private schools tend to have better extra curricular provision, reducing the need to seek this out of school.

Private schools generally offer wraparound and holiday clubs so children attending them don't need to look elsewhere for childcare provision

All of those last things are facts that will reduce the amount of mixing that, in general, private school children do.

Individuals may do entirely different things. I'm not sure why you are so keen to deny that private school children in general mix with a smaller number of others? Of course, some may have huge wide ranging friendship bases, as some state school children never interact with anyone other than their very close friends, but external factors make it more likely that state school children know more others.

I also think that in general private school parents have more money than state school parents. That doesn't preclude children of millionaires going to state schools or children from less well off families going to private schools on bursaries or because grandparents are paying, and the fact these things happen doesn't make my sentence any less true.

Neither a sibling or private education come with guarantees of happiness and success. It's a very bizarre choice and the obsession with private education being some kind of golden ticket in this country is pretty sad.