Do people expect ROI after paying private school fees?

[Enrew]

By ROI, I mean getting into top unis/ prestigious job/ high performer in a sport etc?

I ask after a family friend spent around 120k on child's education and child dropped out of good uni course to become personal trainer/ influencer. Nothing wrong with that career choice imo but friend seems resentful/ annoyed that after spending so much money child won't be doctor/ lawyer / banker and they could have done this career regardless of where they went to school. It's as if they had expectations all along.

I have no experience of private school system myself and my DC will go to local state school but thinking about it if I was paying out thousands per year for DC to have top education, I'd probably have some extra expectations.

I don't think it's at all possible to claim that all private schools are more diverse than all state schools or vice versa - they all vary so much.

My sons' state school is incredibly diverse - my sons have friends who are refugees, from all religions, from a huge range of different countries (off the top of my head, Korea, China, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Albania, the US, Jamaica) and that's just their friends, there are more backgrounds in the school as a whole

Yes agree depends where you are. I'm in the a rural part of England and when a boy with black heritage joined the primary school there was a buzz of interest. The state school is almost completely white. Dds private school had a large percentage of overseas students from various countries, plus many black and brown students.

Totally not economically diverse though I'll admit!

Pretty much nothing can be claimed to be universally true of either sector but that doesn't stop vitriolic anti-private posters making sweeping generalisations usually sneering at "Jemima and Sebastian" . There is economic diversity at most private schools though of course you rarely get the very bottom end. Plenty at ours though with one or two parents doing very normal m/c jobs and living in modest homes.

In terms of diversity, i disagree

I like to respond to these with unfair sweeping generalisations about State school kids.

Also, doesn't stop the anti state school brigade who think they're full of disruption, drugs and dimwits

It very much depends on the individual.

I went to a private school. From my school year, one classmate tried to be a model, but the best she managed was a job for Ethel Austin… she’s now glamour model/does babe station/homemade porn. Another classmate was very high up in government until the last election and can expect to be pretty powerful and very well paid for a very long time to come.

Same school year, same quality of education, two very different careers.

Private school will still benefit the OP's friend's daughter even if she decides "just" to become a personal trainer. It'll have given her a certain amount of confidence and chutzpah, which she'll need to start her own business. She'll have plenty of contacts - affluent friends who can provide a starter client base, peers in her social group with financial and/or marketing expertise if she needs it. Same goes for lucrative sponsorships. She'll be able to afford things like quality equipment. She'll probably be able to absorb initial losses and teething issues without going under. Not all of that is the case if you're trying to start up a personal trainer business from nothing.

Genuinely I haven't seen anyone say that. Posters, including me, will talk about their experience of their local school and will often be very careful to say they know many state schools and most state kids are fine / great but that there was rife bullying, violence, anti-learning behaviour etc. I don't think there's anything wrong with identifying particular individuals as problematic at all but you get a lot of real nastiness about any child whose parents send them private when they are perfectly nice kids.

I think everyone wants a "ROI", just that for some people that wont necessarily be a high flying career or a certain university.

Mine are still at primary and I am still debating private school for secondary. The local comps are excellent, so it isn't a requirement. But I went to a private school, and do feel I got a lot out of the breadth of opportunity available. The endless sports to try on the excellent facilities, any music you wanted with own auditorium and orchestra, trips abroad. The value I would get out of it is in them being exposed to more experiences than I think I plus the local school would be able to offer them.

I’m not anti state school at all. There are some truly excellent ones out there, which if you are lucky enough to get your kids into then you are living the dream. I have one SEN child in private due to extensive bully. Physical attacks on a daily basis and the school being powerless to address it. I have other children in the state sector who are not being physically attacked, and though there is a lot of classroom disruption are bright enough to get by with the textbooks for support. What I wouldn’t give for a great state school where my children aren’t assaulted and the classrooms are free from disruption. They exist, just not where we live.

Honestly, CurlewKate you post a lot and you seem smart enough to know there is not anything in life that can have a blanket assumption attached to it. No parent, no child, no family, no school are ever alike.

We have twins - both who passed the grammar school exam and got places at free grammar schools. One twin struggled with her mental health (later diagnosed with severe anxiety and SEN) and was so distressed and refusing school we felt (at great expense) we had to move her to a local private school.

Our son at the free government school does much better academically than our daughter at the private school - but we choose our daughter's private school because we know the school does not put pressure on the kids to achieve grades and they are more interested in their mental health and that is what she needs not great grades.

Every parent wants the best for their kids - and most good parents will try and give them the best they can. But wanting the best for your child does not equate to meaning you want less for other people's children.

Of course all kids need and should have a good education - but private school parents are not the reason the government has under invested in the free government schools.

In fact, I still can't get my head around why you have some countries like Australia giving private school parents rebates for not accessing the free government school system...and you have the UK, who in theory is saving money when a parent pulls their child out of the free government school system, stopping continuing to give that school the £7/8k a year they were paying towards that child's education. It's madness.

No-one is saying we as a community should not pay more taxes to making all school's great. But targeting one section of the community who is already saving the government money in this area just seems morally wrong to me. My daughter is in yr13 and so this tax won't affect us for long. It would make more sense to increase all our taxes going forward towards paying for better schools.