To choose the local state comp over the high achieving private boys school?

[Seaofcake]

We have narrowed down our secondary school choices to two options and DH and I disagree about which one is best. DH is willing to pay for private and although it wouldn’t by any means be a drop in the ocean, we could do it.

We’ve gone round in circles with this decision. My pros and cons are below. Any advice would really be welcome.

State comp

Pros

• Mixed sex
• 10 minute drive in rush hour. He could walk or catch the bus eventually.
• Ofsted report is outstanding in all areas
• Enrichment programme
• Strict on behaviour
• 1.5 mile catchment, local kids
• Get to stay in area and younger DC can go to primary when ready.

Cons

• Less chance for trips and opportunities, will need to fight for them
• Some kids look rough when we’ve hung around during end of school day (but there is a good number of polite, decent kids too; it’s just very varied)
• Only 20% scored above 7 in English and Maths
• Strict but some rules are over the top

Private school

Pros

• Excellent GCSE and A level scores
• Excellent extra-curriculars
• Excellent and varied trips
• Well behaved, polite boys

Cons

• Boys school so limited social opportunities with girls. No contact with girls till 16
• It’s a city school with little greenery
• School finishes at 16:00 but coach gets back at 17:15 and that’s without after-school clubs
• Have to get the coach in the morning too and it leaves at 07:40 so it makes for a very long day
• If he does clubs, they finish at 17:30 but coach gets back at 18:40
• Forced to move?
• Can afford an extended semi in the city centre but it doesn’t have the greenery of our current location and we will lose the catchment of our local primary for younger DC who are due to join in a few years time

What would you do?

The other thing to think about is onwards destinations. I work in law so 99% of my friends send their kids to private. They are all moaning about the prejudice in terms of Oxbridge / law / medicine applications against private school kids.

Many are taking their kids out of private for A-Level because of it.

It’s not prejudice it’s just they are no longer given the advantage they were given historically so it feels like prejudice.

Just saw your update that the independent school is over 90% 9-7 at GCSE.

Imo, compared to the state option (20% 9-7) l, it's a no-brainer to go for the independent. Your son has done very well to get in - presumably entry has been very competitive? Why put him through that if he's not going to go?

Obviously there will be bright kids in the state school and probably some streamed sets for them. But don't underestimate the difference in 'normal expectations' when they go to a school where pretty much all their peers will be working at 9-7. It's a totally different education. The whole ethos of the school is geared towards that kind of pace and extension beyond the curriculum. When he's working at a top level, teachers won't be making him out as 'special' - it will just be normal. It makes pupils push themselves for 9s, rather than always being told they are 'top set' and resting on their laurels. His peer group will all be like him - he won't stand out at all if he's aiming for all 9s. I've seen so many children 'dumb down' in state schools and just settle for 7s rather than 9s because teachers are always telling them they are 'top set' so they just think this is 'good enough' and also (importantly) they don't want to stand out too much in their peer groups. In the (very selective) independent, the whole culture and ethos will be different. Teachers don't need to divide themselves between pupils aiming for 4s and those who potentially could get 9s. The whole learning pace will be aimed at the very high ability of the cohort and they all get carried along with each other as standard. That is what you would be paying for. It's nothing to do with 'connections' or even extra curricular. You can get these anywhere. The fact is, your DS will come out with top grades, almost guaranteed, just by being very average in his school. A school like that will only take the top maybe 5% of children (in terms of academic ability). Peer group matters way more than teachers at this age. He will measure himself by his peers.

how do you know about expectations for top set students at state school?

I have seen so many DC in comprehensives get told they are in the 'gifted and talented' stream. Then they come out with 7s max. Nothing wrong with 7s, but it's not what you might expect if they were actually 'gifted.'

I myself underachieved at a state school because I was singled out in this way. Also I didn't want the 'she's a square' mocking that was daily.

They are also not in sets for everything. A teacher is going to have less time / energy to explain to a child who is getting 7/8 in say, practice history papers, how to push that grade up to a 9, when they have to focus on getting others in the class up to a basic pass level.

@catstaff47 - there are loads of helpful websites now where a bright DC who wants to can get themselves up to a 9 doing past papers etc and watching videos. Things have changed. For those with a will to do well, the internet is very helpful. Obviously it is harder than in a selective schools or a selective set where other kids are working hard, but it is doable.
Where we live in London, lots of the comprehensives have very good top sets, especially in Maths and Sciences. Some schools even have special programmes like Mandarin Excellence or a Maths or Music Focus which can be exceptional. We need more of these programmes across all areas of the country and working with unis seems to be a really good way to foster this.

In fact, a lot of the parents who demand highly of children are in state schools, many simply cannot afford private schools. Some private schools are full of rich kids who will inherit with less pushy parents and frequent holidays as opposed to revision. It really does depend on the school and kids, not whether private vs state. And as many will point out, for many kids an individual teacher can really inspire them. You can get good and bad teachers in both sectors. It is always a combination of child’s ability and passion for learning, schooling and parental attitudes.

Playing the system

Nobody is playing the system! People are just sick of paying up and tax on top and even the middle classes are feeling the cost of living. And Sixth Forms are mainly selective anyway. Most of the very successful ones operate like grammar schools with top set kids on par with top set kids in private schools. So why would anyone keep paying? It is the 2 year period children are almost adults and have to focus heavily on work rather than extracurricular as much. It makes no sense to keep paying unless the child does not want to leave their friends. However, in many cases they can easily stay in touch post 16 anyway as they travel independent. I really hope there will be enough Sixth Form places for all given this VAT. Our grammars have taken quite a few extra kids this academic year already.

That certainly didn't apply to me. When I went to the state secondary I didn't work hard. I could do academically well without actually putting in much effort.

Perhaps it was because I started years head after being in a selective prep school. . But in all honesty I was mainly bored so messed about. Threats of my grades slipping if I didn't work hard were totally empty. Could do the work in half hour of a 2 hour lesson then mess around for the other time.

I do think people comparing their own experience at school, whether state or private, is irrelevant really. Schools are very different places now.

Honestly find some of the perceptions of state school absolutely bizarre, particularly when the state school in question is clearly good.

By way of (un)balance, most of the private school students I met at university really struggled with the change of pace and independent learning, as they had been considerably more spoon fed than state peers. That is not to say state school kids had been left to their own devices by any means.

I would never choose single sex schooling (which exists in both sectors to be fair) but think this probably is more toxic for girls than boys.

I don’t think private school kids exclusively see learning or doing well as cool, nor do I think that is the case for state school. It is entirely mixed and depends on the individual child. There are so many factors. At my state school plenty of kids went and did medicine, veterinary science, law etc and we had a handful go to Oxbridge. Most people went to RG unis.

Of course private school has its advantages but IMO a good state school will produce a far more well rounded individual.

@TheaBrandt Of course most Winchester parents are well off but Winchester does produce high achieving DC irrespective of their parents. We do need all sorts of people in this country and no bright child should be looked down on because of their parents. The education there is obviously better than most schools. I also think we don’t really care where our Doctors are educated. As long as they are good doctors, who cares. If we don’t want privately educated doctors, then I’m sure these dc will find another career. Companies (as suggested above) not even looking at privately educated people are in a minority. They don’t know what the circumstances of the parent or child. It’s a shame we have a war on the better off.

I agree. In my state comp if you were clever you were deemed a square. But that was flipping years ago things are very very different now. At my dds state there is absolutely none of that whatsoever actually the opposite.

I guess it depends what outcome you want? It sounds like he would get better grades at the private school (ie because you say it is high achieving so it is likely to push your child who you say is on the low end academically to do his best).

If you have a good state option I would go with that. He won't necessarily need tutoring but you will have plenty of money left over for it if he did.

The teaching will likely not be better at private school. They just get better results because they are either selective to begin with or have students from 'easier' families with supportive parents who donate lot of the work for them. It's a myth that the actual teaching is better in private schools. They often pay less and offer worse or less secure pensions so why would it be? If your son is academic and you are supportive he will likely do just as well or better at a decent state school. You can give the enrichment opportunities yourselves.

What you pay for in private education is getting your children away from the 'riffraff' (not my belief, but it's why most do it). If it's a big school probably good sports opportunities too. Maybe worth it if he's a promising cricketer or something like that, or if your local state options are awful, otherwise I'd say don't bother.

We had the same decision to make for DD and we chose the outstanding state school. We then moved her to private at start of year 9 when we realised the mistake we had made. Would have moved her at start of y8 had it not been for the lockdowns.

The strict discipline was the issue. It all sounded great on paper but the reality was the school was so strict about everything that my daughter developed OCD as a way to make sure she never forgot anything she needed for class and lived in such fear of getting into trouble that she started having panic attacks. The bullying was a whole other issue too.

I was a bright kid that did well at a rubbish comp but I think it came at a cost and I’d say lots of my friends didn’t achieve their potential for various reasons. I also remember dialling down my ability a lot to avoid sticking out.

I am doing the school open days at the moment and have a dilemma really about the value add of private schools. I don’t particularly like the comp we’d likely get- it feels very run down and is in turnaround (which to a certain extent is good) but it feels like behaviour is very draconian, lunch is very short to avoid behaviour issues so no clubs or a chance for a break. Music provision is basically zero and no opportunity to take more than one language at gcse.

I’ve looked at 5 private schools. 2 I don’t think would be worth the money over the catchment school in terms of value add. There are 3 schools which absolutely would. What I can’t work out though is what is best as a family- throw money into education and face a degree of financial pressure for a decade or have a more relaxed life with holidays, kitchen extension etc.

I also disagree with graduate recruitment trying to apply a state v private filter. I think if you’re going to do in for social engineering you have to be a hell of a lot more sophisticated than that and either go by postcode or look at the school itself and whether someone out performed the average. There is a hell of a lot of privilege in some state schools- possible more in some top grammars or tiny catchment schools than the private schools. I think there is more inequality within the state sector than there is between private and the best state schools.

This is a familiar story at our local outstanding comp. Nit-picking, draconian disciplinary and really going after the wrong kids.

Private. Every time if it's a good one.

Our local private school is getting an increasingly bad reputation for its attitude towards the local area (from parents and staff, the pupils are polite on the whole).

Our local private school is getting an increasingly bad reputation for its attitude towards the local area (from parents and staff, the pupils are polite on the whole).

The thing is, the OP is not talking about 'private schools' as a sector. She is talking about a particular independent school which gets over 90% 7-9 at GCSE.

From the sound of it - boys school, over 90% 7-9, boys on coaches to and fro, and an interview meaning you almost definitely have a place - it's somewhere like Hampton school.

That sort of school is highly selective. For every place offered, about 5 other (very academic) kids will have been rejected. Getting in is no small matter.

All her son has to do is basically turn up, be average-ish and he'll come out with 11 9s at GCSE.

In a school of mixed-ability where inly 20% achieve 7-9, yes, straight 8/9s are possible of course. But much less likely.

It's not about sector, it's about how selective a school is. If schools can cherry pick, they just choose the most able and run with it.

You could argue it doesn't make sense to pay at all. But plenty of parents do state at 6th form to play the system

State.

And I say this as someone with a kid in private so I’m not anti private.

• Statistically, boy do better in mixed sex.
• You have to pay extra for many trips in private anyway.
• Behaviour is not necessarily better, just different problems.
• It is closer and there’s a lot to be said for having local
• You can afford to supplement with tutors if needed.
• You need less holiday childcare at state.

completely agree! My daughter's state sch is very focused on getting the best grades possible for their pupils.