Paying to keep your child away from certain types of other children… I don’t understand?

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I’ve seen so many threads recently bashing people who use private school as a way to remove their child from an environment with other children who may be challenging, disruptive etc.

I am completely against private education for a whole host of reasons… but surely if you send your child to a state school, even then you hope they don’t mix with the ‘wrong’ types? Ie those who are disruptive, rude, aggressive etc? Surely you also want your child as far away as possible from that?

I am absolutely amazed that there is suggestion that kids should be around that environment as it’s ’real life’ and shouldn’t be segregated for example by private education . Are people actually saying they are ok with their children sharing a classroom with kids that really aren’t interested in learning and have no values instilled in them by their parents? I will forever use the state system but if I knew my children were mixing with other children who didn’t give a shit and were disruptive, I would do all I could to keep them away from it. Isn’t that just sensible?!

So, you reported it to the school? And they’ve done nothing? Ok.

As adults we can make choices to try to stay away from violent people, from sexual assault, from being sworn and shouted at. If your colleague at the desk next to you hit you several times a day, tore up your work, smashed your work equipment (which you had bought yourself) shouted and swore at you and your boss told you off because you weren't getting your work done quickly enough, is that a place you would feel happy to stay working at? If you got assaulted in the street and that person then sat at a table in a pub with you, how would you feel?

I saw a boy hit my daughter and her friends at a school disco recently, and reported it to a teacher. Whose response was 'no he didnt'. They would rather deny it than stop it, I was horrified and have booked an appointment with head to discuss, although I doubt it will change much.

We expect children to accept aggressive behaviour as part of their every day lives, we expect girls to accept being hit and groped by boys. No wonder we have such high DV, girls are learning at a young age that they get hit and no one will protect them, boys are learning there are no significant consequences for hitting girls.

So yes, my daughter wants to go to an all girls schools to feel safer. Non selective state does not give her this choice so it's grammer or private. I am not keen on either in principle, but in practice my daughters need to feel safe comes first.

It would certainly be my main motivation in choosing a school for my children. Both mine were state-educated, but I wanted them to go to schools where the families were supportive of the school and where they valued education and respected teachers.

I was a teacher myself, and I completely get that schools are good because of the people you exclude, not just those you include.

I heard horror stories of children at other schools who had to change their whole persona to 'fit in' with the tough kids there. It was either that or get bullied into the ground. Who wants that for their children? Or for them to go to a school where it's not cool to work hard and achieve?

Luckily at my children's schools it was definitely NOT cool not to work.

I went to a state school.

It was rough as fuck. There were knife fights. I was beaten up. Very few kids valued education.

My parents thought it would help me learn social skills,

About the only thing I learnt was stay away for teenage boys they are violent and sexually aggressive.

I hated hated hated it and did not want my kids to experience being beaten up in the name of understanding other people.

Mine went to a mix of state and private.

There was no way I was letting them go to somewhere they would get beaten up like I did.

No, I didn't report it. I just thought "Scummy little gits, is that what Mummy and Daddy are paying thousands for"? and got on with my day.

It's just an image that pops into my head when anyone mentions private schools.

You seem oddly riled by one anecdote.

My DCs went to a state primary school in a 'nice' middle class area. There was a lot of bullying in that school.

They went on to a comp that was in a similar area but had a large intake from a rough area. Neither of them got bullleyed in secondary.

You're not necessarily going to get well behaved little angels in a private school. But the reasons for their bad behaviour are likely to be different - so to massively overgeneralise, you'll get spoilt brats rather than neglected kids.

NO - but private schools have more autonomy to get rid of disruptive and anti-social children. The speed with which they are ejected is very satisfying - I've seen it in action!

You brought a knife into school? Parents in within the hour - child out for good one hour later. Oh that the state sector could do that.

Yet your DD is doing exactly the same with her inverted snobbery. I can only speak from my own experience, but our private school is incredibly diverse with people on all sorts of incomes and many cultural backgrounds.

Where are all these independent mainstream schools that are full of SEN kids ? We couldn’t find one for my DS. Great academics, good behaviour, but auDHD. Managed out of his prep mid Year 5 and had to fight for an EHCP. Some of our local indies are full of badly behaved bullying kids or full of overseas students and failing on safeguarding. I must be living in the wrong area.

He would have been trying to get her to bed probably🤮

Round where I live a lot of the kids in private school will have drug dealers and gangsters for parents. Private school is no guarantee that the children or their parents will be any better.

I am absolutely amazed that there is suggestion that kids should be around that environment as it’s ’real life’

It is real life though.

You encounter people from all walks of life and attitudes everyday.

At school, at work, on the train, on holiday, in the supermarket, in restaurants, on the roads, on the streets, everywhere!

You do realise private schools will have students who are challenging, disruptive and aren’t interested in learning. These behaviours aren’t subject to state schools only. Very weird thread.

And yet you/your DD sound prejudiced there. Again, the vast majority of private schools are nothing like Eton. The majority of the pupils are the children of nurses, teachers, care workers, police officers - just normal everyday jobs.

Private schools do not give pupils the idea they’re superior to everyone else 🙄 There are a few snooty people around but they’d be like that whether they went to a private school, a comp in an expensive leafy suburb or were home-schooled. None - and I mean that literally - of my peers were entitled or arrogant. They were pleasant and hard-working. We all mixed with children from local non-private schools for sports, parties, social events anyway so the idea that private school students don’t know what the real world is like is ridiculous.

I would think most parents hope their children are in schools where behaviour isn’t an issue. Totally agree OP.

This was it for me. I considered private for DS as he is very academic and I thought he'd thrive in that part, but I grew up in a town with a private boys school and I remember very clearly what those boys were like: privileged, entitled, arrogant.
I think its been far better for him to be in an ordinary comprehensive. Yes, there are 'difficult' kids but there are difficult people outside of school. I think this has given him a far better grounding for real life.

Yeah but you have some choice, move area, move job, move away from the nutter in the street. Kids have to sit with these other children day in and day out at school.

There are disruptive little darlings in private schools too - it’s a silly argument based on the politics of envy

Ok, just to correct a few assumptions. I do indeed live in a nice area, and this shaped our experience at primary school - a lot (certainly not all) of the children were well behaved middle class/working class kids. The friends I spoke about who send their kids to private school actually live down south. I've lived all over the UK and am now in Leeds.
However, the nice area we live in doesn't really impact the state secondary school my children go to. It's an inner city school in Leeds with children from all areas of Leeds (wealthy areas and deprived areas). In fact, the headmaster said that over 55% of pupils come from deprived backgrounds. As I said, I don't see this as a negative. Deprivation and poverty doesn't = bad kids or a bad school. The fact is, the school is good, behaviour is good. So yes, good experience.
My own secondary school was what you'd describe as a failing comprehensive. It was almost closed several times when I was there. Some of the children were...troubled, let's say. You certainly wouldn't describe it as a "good experience of a state school" because on paper it wasn't!! However, to me it was a good experience because like I say, it opened my eyes, it shaped how I view the world and how I view those who live in deprivation. It actually led to me being a bit of an activist for equality- I still am and I'm now nearly 50. I'm glad I didn't go to a better school because I value everything I experienced and learnt at that school.

Kids in private education have just as many issues as kids in the state run schools. Maybe different but just as many. You can swop out the issues they face but each has separate challenges to face. A troubled kid is a troubled kid!

I think the key here is to give your kids the best start in life you can, and sometimes that means raising them to cope with the environment in which they will spend their life. And how you go about this is all dependent on the particular child's educational levels and personality. There is no "one stop, suits all".

Meeting a wide range of personality types at a young age is surely a good thing. My parents decided against private education as they didn't like the arrogance of kids they knew in that system so I suppose it cuts both ways.

I don't get this- so it's not okay to generalise about state school children, but it's fine to about private school children? Why would they all have the same personality type? They're still human.

You can’t just keep it moving to escape other people from different walks of life. That’s honestly nuts.

I’ve said this on several threads and the reason I say it is because people’s perceptions of state secondary behaviour are so skewed. They use it as an excuse to justify the privilege they are really buying within the private sector, as it exists in this country

Yes there’s bad behaviour, but, as anywhere, it’s a minority. Every parent I’ve heard talk about why their local comprehensive isn’t good enough references truanting, kids gaping outside the local shop bla bla. SOME kids do that. As a parent, you can strongly influence whether your child has anything to do with these people, not by buying them a different education, but by teaching them what you expect of them.

As per previous posts, I went to a very well regarded private school and hated it, and now fundamentally disagree with the entire system. I could send my kids, but choose not to. Private school types are dreadful in their own way, and I’d rather my children were not like them (I’m surrounded by them each day at work, as well as having been through the system myself)

I used to feel very strongly that you shouldn't judge and should get along with all walks of life, then my son wanted to go to a sleepober at a house where the adult had just been released from prison for domestic violence. Again. And I thought no. Sorry. I am sure the teen in question was nice and I wish him every success. He is welcome to tea at ours. But my son is not staying with a violent man. So it turned out I am quite judgemental.

I am of course OK with my son being at school with this child! And I actually think domestic violence is as prevelant in wealthy households so probably not a good example.
But there's lots of things where I judge and say, no I don't want my chikd involved in that.

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