Private school vs private anything educational

[stopitstopitnooow]

If you have an issue with private schools, why? Do you have an issue with:

Buying houses in expensive catchment areas
Extracurricular activities such as music lessons, swimming, sports coaching
Tutors; language, 11+, GCSE

(Also, private healthcare, dentists, opticians)

I honestly don't understand the angst when it comes to private schools. Let people spend their money however they see fit.

You will find that some of the best private schools are in Europe, actually.

And?

You haven't answered the question:

Do you think that removing opportunities from one group will improve the lot of the other group?

Start by improving the standards of state schools (beginning with some proper funding so that classes of 60 aren't being taught corraled by TAs in the school hall due to a lack of qualified teachers). Any solution that doesn't start by improving the state schools is levelling down, not levelling up.

Fees for private schools are usually set at a minimum of 30,000 pounds a year for one student

That is simply untrue. “In 2022–23, average private school fees across the UK were £15,200 in today's prices” (from the IFS).

There are plenty of private schools, certainly at primary, where fees are less than £15,000 (ie less than half your quoted figure).

Untruths such as this, often stated as fact, are precisely why people incorrectly assume that private schools are only used by the super wealthy. There are children at private school (often only children) where their parents both have average incomes and stretch themselves to pay the fees. Fee levels are often at a level which can be afforded by people who certainly aren’t “wealthy”.

I sent my daughter to the local primary, which is apparently ofsted outstanding. It is always oversubscribed and we had to buy very close to the school to guarantee her a place. It was utterly horrendous and completely failed her. She has additional needs which they completely ignored because she's not disruptive. She was sinking.

We moved her to the local prep school and it is like night and day. She is well supported and is flying academically and socially. Whilst I do genuinely wish that all schools were as good as her current school is, I'm not going to sacrifice her happiness, progress or self esteem to keep her in a system which was so destructive to her.

All this guff about affluent, well educated parents pushing up standards in state schools is rubbish in my experience. Although we tried very hard to work with the school and push them to improve their SEN offering etc, it was like trying to push water uphill. They resented us trying to push for improvement and change. What could we do?

Ultimately, as parents, we all owe our biggest duty to our own children. We tried the state system for DD but it didn't work for her. Improve the state offering and the private system will either shrink or the advantage it offers will be reduced. But that isn't a simplistic, populist soundbite, with a convenient common enemy, so no politician will go for it.

Very much agree @AmongstTheCosmos that engaged parents don’t change a school for all. Tried that through the primary years. I wanted more rigour and challenge. My DC were bored. Other parents were horrified. Thought it was stopping children being children and all that guff. It really depends upon the child, they have different capacities and needs.

A lot of the parents who don’t like private school, don’t like grammar schools either.

It comes across as “no child should be allowed to learn more or develop past my child.”

Very similar to the sentiment that the marginal tax rate should be 100% for every pound beyond my annual salary. 😂

Only approximately 7% of children go to private school, and I’d hazard a guess that a lot of their parents aren’t labour voters (based on the average profile of a labour voter and the average profile of a person who can and does pay for private school)- so even if every labour voting private school parent changes their vote-which they won’t- it isn’t actually very many votes.

I mainly have an issue because it’s quite easy to end up not getting what you pay for in a private school. Even a good private school will not necessarily give your child the experience they would get at a good state school. Any school, private or state can be a bad fit for a child.

There’s a sort of above the law issue with private schools too. They have their own inspection system, their own curriculums, entrance requirements etc. If they decide your child’s face doesn’t fit, you can be the quickest to pay fees and most involved parent in the world and they will still ease you out. Paying to feel insecure and paying extra for anything they can get out of you. Not all of them play it like that, but they can if they want to and the rules they set are their own not rules that apply across a sector as in state schools.

This is it- you would have to outright ban private education, and then grammar schools, and then moving into better catchment areas, home tutors etc etc, because while any of it is a possibility people will do it. That would be a very unpopular policy that no party would take!

There are very few people who will look at a shit, or even mediocre state school and decide to send their kids there when they can afford a better catchment area or private school fees.

I think the difference is that, unlike most of the other things you mention, education is (a) a fundamental human right and (b) something that is not available at anything like an adequate standard for a lot of people due to massive underfunding. Obviously a lot of kids do tyrive in the state system - for those sufficiently bright and well motivated and unaffected by serious social or neurodevelopment issues it can be fine, if that's combined with the luck/affluence of a decent catchment area. But far too many kids are totally let down.

This awful situation creates anger because it simply should not be the case in a civilised society, and it it is perceived that the reason it is allowed to persist is that those who have the power to fix it also have the option to use the private sector for their own children and therefore don't fix it.

I agree with you that people should be able yo spend their money as they wish, and I pay for my own DC to go to an independent school.

I want the country to prioritise education sufficiently that all state education is genuinely good. I am ok with Labour's plans to add VAT to school fees (though I think that the VAT should only apply to the difference between the full school fees and the average amount of funding a state-school gets per pupil, because of education being a human right not a luxury) and think that voting for a party that will prioritise education for the many not the few is the way to go. I don't think Labour has any plans to ban private schools but I genuinely hope they manage to make state schools so good that a lot of private schools go bankrupt for lack of custom.

Agree @AmongstTheCosmos and @EmpressoftheMundane , I've posted about my experience of exactly that on other threads.

My parents sent me to the local comp, having declined an opportunity for me to apply for a scholarship at the local private school. I achieved despite and not because of the state school I went to. I was miserable because the culture was that clever was not cool. It was frankly difficult to concentrate in classes where almost everyone messed about, where there was a succession of supply teachers not knowing what the previous one had covered, where the kids with SEN were left to be supervised and supported by the brightest kids in the class.

Whilst on the surface, my intake (GCSE class of 1993) delivered the best results in the school's history it did not raise the standards for everyone, it was individuals achieving against the odds.

My mum became a parent governor and it made not one jot of difference to the school; they were irritated that she wasn't a constant stream of praise in their ears.

So yeah, I'm proof you can achieve in a shit state school, but it generates a lifetime of resentment. My attendance (and the attendance of the small group of other kids from lower middle class backgrounds) did not 'raise standards', it just made us unhappy. It did nothing for the 50% of girls from my class who had given birth by the time I left my local town for university 2 years later.

Needless to say I'm privately educating my kids and I'm unapologetic about it.

Fact is, hammering private schools does NOTHING to raise standards in state schools. State schools need massive massive investment to ensure adequate resource, class size and broadening of opportunity. That is best funded by taxing true wealth, not adding VAT to school fees.

(For true wealth, see a list of Tory party donors and Tory peers as a starting point...)

Yes, I live in an ‘Outstanding’ Primary School Area and have 5 ‘Outstanding’ primaries within walking distance to my house. I visited all of them when we were considering schools - none of them had class sizes below 35 after Year 1 and in most cases during the Reception Years children were put in a large classesroom of 60 - they had 2 teachers and were technically two seperate classes but without walls the disruption was awful.

Grounds were negligable. Fair enough large grounds isn’t a requirement for non-Grammar State Schools. But half of these schools only had a concrete playground that boys played football on and everyone else seemed to have to make do.

Lunches were free but the menus were the same - meat once a week, processed meat-free / Quorn 4 times a week. Kids were given plain jackets to eat if they didn’t want the main course.

Toilet rules made no sense. From Year 1, three of the schools didn’t allow children to use the toilets except for playtimes. Two required a pass that children had to walk to the reception to get - my first visit to one of these schools a parent come in to change a child as they had an accident in reception in front of everyone (the toilet was apparently next to her class). The girl was distraught, the parent was understandably furious, and the reception staff were making the matter worse by suggesting she wasn’t potty trained.

All sport beyond basic PE / LEA funded sport is paid for. Language lessons are only online.

In the meantime DS’ private primary has maximum classes of 25 from Year 1. In the early years it’s maximum class sizes of 15 to ensure kids get the basics right. Children are allowed to follow their interests after they get the basics right so there no disruptive children - considering this school has more SEN pupils than the local State Schools that’s a massive positive. They have special sensory / quiet zones for all kids in the library that children can use for up to 20mins a day. The grounds aren’t substantial but there’s enough to go for a walk. No funny rules about toilets - kids are trusted to leave quietly whenever needed.

so no one able to explain how dumping 7% of children out of private into state is going to ensure all children receive the same, good quality education then?

9 pages later, no. Private schools generally have huge catchments. A few extra children in a local state school, at most, will do nothing at all. It will make no difference whatsoever.

If you want your kids to have a better education, look at voting for the party that promises that and hold them to account.

Exactly. And yet people will still claim that your private school is a “luxury” and should be subject to VAT, when in actual fact the standard of education you are receiving is one which all children should be able to have.

Speaking from experience - most parents will try to swallow the 20% VAT increase by cutting back elsewhere. Some (like us) will delay or not upsize houses. Others (also us lol) are leaving flexible remote / hybrid job for jobs with more pay. People who are self-employed are raising money where they can (eg doctors minimising NHS work to the minimim, grandparents using tax efficient schemes like trusts even earlier so gc don’t need to pay IHT on inheritances, private school teachers raising fees on the tutoring services they offer privately).

If indeed the government were to suddenly close all private schools tomorrow then there would be a problem.

Any significant change like that has a transition period which one hopes would be planned for and the negative impact minimised.

Long term it is my belief that everyone would benefit. Parents who want the best for their children would have to work with and support the state system rather than upgrade away from it.

Surely the fact that pupils can be kicked out is a bonus. There's a thread running at the moment where state school teachers are complaining that behaviour is not taken seriously by heads who are more worried about how exclusions will look to Ofsted so violent and disruptive pupils are straight back into class the next day. One poster's husband resorted to ringing up the head himself to force the head to move the pupil who had attacked his pregnant wife.

OP, I have asked your question again and again on MN threads over the years and never been given a rational answer other than 'they create a divide.' So do gorgeous homes v mouldy, damp squalid flats with dangerous neighbours. So do foreign holidays v no holidays, healthy nutritious food v cheap refined carbs as your staple, extra curricular opportunities v being a child carer. No one seems to object to non-academic distinctions either. it's OK to send a child to the Brit School or Cheetham's if they are gifted at music. But supporting academic excellence is despised. I stopped worrying about it years ago. Support your child in any way that seems right for your child to flourish and don't pay attention to illogical judgement.

Sending your child to private school isn't "supporting academic excellence", it's "supporting societal division."

It's a myth that private schooling inevitibly means good schooling. What it does mean is schooling for the wealthy and better socially connected.

Your childhood food or holidays don't set you on the path for the rest of your life. Private schooling can. It's buying privilege for a self-selected elite group of children.

Sending your child to private school isn't "supporting academic excellence", it's "supporting societal division."

OK. So, again.....how does tipping 7% of children in school into the state system prevent societal division? Because neither the money nor the privilege it buys disappear because the child goes to a state school.

Sigmama · Yesterday 20:52

I think all children have a right to an equal education, how you can compare that go fancy cars is beyond me

It would be great for all children to have a fantastic education but it's so dependent on their home background. No-one wants to put emphasis on this (it's absolute heresy these days to blame parents for anything!). Whatever any govt does to try and equal things out, educational chances will always be affected (not so much by state/private) but by parents and families.

My son went to a partially-selective state school - not a hot-house grammar, it was more akin to a comprehensive but with a grammar-school feel and ethos - it wasn't cool to muck about or not work hard. It was very socially and ethnically mixed. I know that my main criterion for choosing a secondary school for my children was 'What are the other families like?' I wanted him to be at a school where the other families supported the school and the children's education, and wanted academic success for their children and were prepared to put that before other things.

I'm old and have thought about education a lot over the years as a pupil, a teacher and a parent. Despite their perceived disadvantages for some children (which can be mitigated) I think grammar schools would be the salvation of our education system. They need to be be broader in intake than the remaining rare grammar schools, and there needs to be provision for a 'top band' of late developers/borderline fails at age 11 in the High School alternative. High Schools could then cater to the different needs of less academic/possibly more practical students, instead of the awful 'one size is damn well going to fit all' ethos.

It's the loss of grammar schools which have caused so many people to look to private education.

Your childhood food or holidays don't set you on the path for the rest of your life.

You honestly believe that a child who is provided with healthy, fresh, home cooked food doesn’t have any life advantage compared with a child provided with insufficient or inadequate food throughout their childhood?

You honestly believe that a child who is provided with healthy, fresh, home cooked food doesn’t have any life advantage compared with a child provided with insufficient or inadequate food throughout their childhood?

I think maybe the poster meant that posh food and fancy holidays don't make the difference that a fancy school might. Of course good nutrition is an advantage, and that's all the more reason that children who don't have that kind of advantage shpuld have access to just as good an education as wealthy kids do.

But apparently the whole point of moving children out of the private sector is so that the children of high income parents don’t do too well at school. So why would the state sector be interested in my ideas / support as to how to make sure my sons and other children like them do well. They are basically there to keep them down and give other children a chance to catch up.

Or is it ok if rich children do well but only on the state sector?

Plus I’m mostly putting my children into private school because I’m a single parent with a demanding job and the school supports me. I don’t want to have to support a school in order to make it provide an acceptable level of education and I doubt I’d be of much use anyway.

I think if you remove all choice from a system and offer only one state sanctioned model of education you inevitably get a poor result which doesn’t suit all children.

I'm always surprised on these threads that the 93% of state parents aren't insulted that apparently their efforts to support and advocate and push for change is ineffective but magically, the extra 7% would do it (which actually wouldn't be 7 anyway, maybe 2-3 % because the v richest would absorb the extra cost).
There is always so much ignorance on these threads such as @Vivi0 idea that they all cost 30k. That's boarding fees. As a pp said, average is 15k for day schools, which for one child, with two working parents is achievable, certainly if outside the south east. The "extras" that are often mentioned can be mitigated with second hand uniform and kit, and many many kids at mine don't go on any trips. It's not the preserve of the Uber Rich but the proposed vat add will make it so.

I agree with you, but just wanted to clarify that I didn’t actually say that fees cost £30,000 per annum. I did, however, challenge the poster who said that.