Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do some families still send Boys to Private (Public) Schools while sending Girls to State Schools

61 replies

Coldcaller · 08/11/2023 21:09

My family could have been described as solidly Upper Middle Class my father was a Criminal Lawyer who was public School educated along with his brother and two generations before him. My mother was also Public School educated and Oxford University, before deciding she wanted to serve society, because money was not a problem. My mother therefore became a teacher but would only teach in Grammar Schools. This was the furthest she was prepared to go, in terms of her public service.

Thus it was always certain my brother would follow his father to Prep and then Public School and of course he did. However, there was never any chance that neither I nor my Sister would be given any Private schooling. For us it was the local Primary and then my mum's Grammar School if we passed the 11+. That was not certain for me and i remember my mother telling me that I will go to the school that suits my ability and whether i was Grammar caliber. In the end i passed and from that moment on during my schooling my mother continually called me a 'lazy' underachiever non more so than my 2:2 from a very ordinary University. This in contrast to both siblings Firsts from Oxford and Cambridge respectively. My mum finally apologized to me many years later when I was finely diagnosed with the 'jackpot' of Autism, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia Dyspraxia and Irlens which tend to co -exist within ASD diagnosis .

However, back to the question of the thread, i know of several well of parents of friends at the time who were equally misogynistic about their daughters schooling.

OP posts:
Seashor · 08/11/2023 21:23

Our son went to private school and our daughter to state BUT only because she didn’t want to go to the private school. Excellent state though and I would have changed her if she wasn’t happy.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 08/11/2023 21:25

Yes, if there's a good state Girls' school, they'll send them there and the boys will go to one of the privates, because the state Boys' schools just aren't anywhere near as good.

Eyecantsee · 08/11/2023 21:27

My father arranged for my brother to interview at Eton. My sisters and I were sent to the local failing state school. My DB hated our DF so much that he deliberately sabotaged the interview by pretending to fall asleep. Guess who was blamed for this?

NuffSaidSam · 08/11/2023 21:27

I'm a nanny and I've worked for families like this, but I haven't come across it for about 15 years or so.

I also worked for a family who had several children and couldn't afford to privately educate all of them so they sent the one girl to private school and all the boys went to state school. Their reasoning was 1. The boys state schools in the area were better than the girls ones and 2. They already had the advantage of being boys, private school would even it out a bit for her.

HumanSoapbox · 08/11/2023 21:29

I'm so sorry they put you through that. Great that she apologised but wow.

gotomomo · 08/11/2023 21:30

Dd had several friends where the eldest son went, often the eldest grandson, the family expectations are high for them and they are expected to pay it back in many ways

GrittyTunnocks · 08/11/2023 21:32

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Fionaville · 08/11/2023 21:33

Wow I didn't know this was still a thing. How awful. The males in my DH's family went to boarding school, while the females went to finishing school.
It looks like we aren't getting away from the 'public school boys' for a long time.

Cap89 · 08/11/2023 21:39

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Wow. Unnecessary at the best of times, but if you read to the end and still felt the need to post that, I cannot understand your motivation.

Burgundylover · 08/11/2023 21:41

Back in the 1930s my greatgrandparents did that with my father and aunt but am surprised to hear of it happening in modern times. In the 1970s my brother and I both went to grammar schools.
The difference in our treatment was that my brother was expected to go to Uni and I was expected to go to either teacher training (non degree course) or secretarial college. I think this was quite common then but would not expect it now.

Pleaseme · 08/11/2023 21:43

I only know one family doing a state private mix and it’s the girl in private primary and her brother at state secondary.

LylaLee · 08/11/2023 21:44

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

OP has stated their learning difficulties. Do YOU have reading comprehension issues together with general unpleasantness?

IDontLoveTheWayYouLie · 08/11/2023 21:46

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

You sound nice x

ChubbyChinook · 08/11/2023 21:46

Did YOU read the full original post?!

ChubbyChinook · 08/11/2023 21:48

Quote fail, my reply is to @GrittyTunnocks who needs to look at their comprehension of a post. OP clearly shared in her post why your question is totally unnecessary.

Tandora · 08/11/2023 21:48

This was definitely a thing when I was growing up in the late 80s / 90s . I went to a private school. There were far more boys than girls in the school, and there were lots of families where the boys in the family were at the school and their female siblings were in a local state. At one point I was the only girl in my class.

FunnysInLaJardin · 08/11/2023 21:48

Yes, a family near to us sent their only son to public school and their 2 daughters to the local comp. Bizarre honestly. This was in the 70's

LylaLee · 08/11/2023 21:54

It's not just Jane Austen where the son is expected to 'make it in the world' and the daughter's job and meal ticket is 'to marry well'.

SausageinaBun · 08/11/2023 21:54

My brother and I both went to private school, but his cost more than mine and my mother wasn't very impressed that my school didn't charge a bit more to equal my DB's school. My private school had classes of 30, which was a bit odd for a private school, but we were academically selected, well behaved girls, so it probably didn't matter much.

I have 2 DDs. When I was pregnant with DD2 (who is now 8) we didn't find out whether we were having a boy or girl. My obstetrician said "if you have a boy, that will be nice for you to have one of each, but if you have a girl, you'll never need to worry about private school fees". I thought that was fairly odd, particularly from a man who himself had just the one daughter and no sons.

Coldcaller · 08/11/2023 21:56

I guess some families when i was growing up in the 1980's believed, that girls could marry well and that a decent rather outstanding education was sufficient .

GrittyTurnocks: It would have been interesting and obviously appropriate to my academic ability if i was educated at the Girls Secondary Modern !. However, I would not have been allowed to hang outside the local 'Chippy' or Off- licence .

OP posts:
DanceMumTaxi · 08/11/2023 21:56

I know a family who did this. Boys to private and their only daughter to the local comp. I personally think this is absolutely dreadful. It should be all or none in my view. What sort of message does that send to daughters? That they’re not worth the money? They are lesser? Just terrible. I’d hoped that those days were gone, but maybe not?

Snoeberry · 08/11/2023 21:57

This was a thing back in the 80s. There were quite a few families from my primary school where the boy would be sent to the local private school and the sisters at the local comp.
I think the head at the time was anti the state school and would tell parents of bright boys to go private if they could afford it.

Most of the parents were lower middle class and probably would have struggled to pay 2 lots of private school fees. I know of others of my age (eg my SIL) where the set up was the same.

I would say it's less of a thing now, definitely. I know of one family where they've mixed private and state and the girl has ended up with more years private than her brothers.

Thesunsstillupthere · 08/11/2023 22:00

I have met a couple of families that do thia, tjough not in recent years.

Now I have a DS I’m really struck by how few schools have well-behaved boys. The girls in our area can go to the girls school to be safe from the badly-behaved biys, but there’s no refuge for the quiet sensitive boys unless you send them private.

If only mums would actually bring up their boys properly instead of just dumping them at sports camps.

BiscuitsandPuffin · 08/11/2023 22:01

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Reported.

Coldcaller · 08/11/2023 22:03

Thank you Biscuits and Puffin.

I have heard worse:

OP posts: