To feel so fed up that the only way to get a good education seems to be privately?

[Greensha]

I’m uk based. I live in a reasonably nice area but the schools are rubbish. We’ve looked further afield and they’re all pretty similar. I don’t know if my expectations are off but the classes are huge, like 30 kids in one room (I thought 25 was the max!). The buildings scruffy. One had a lovely lunch room and nice outside space but the rest of the school was falling down. There’s absolutely no way we can afford private and the one local to us is worlds apart to these state schools. I am trying to remind myself that a lot of that is superficial, the teaching is the same in both sectors as the teachers are the same and I know my dc will leave school with a proper and ‘real’ understanding of life. I can’t help but feel my kids are at a disadvantage overall though and it upsets me. Why should some kids get small classes, loads of sport opportunities and nice clean and tidy environments when others don’t. Doesn’t seem right or fair.

There are good state schools, there are good independent schools.
There are crap state schools, there are crap independent schools.

It all comes down to a postcode lottery. For me choosing indy, all I'm choosing is smaller class sizes, a more engaged cohort and less disruption in the classroom. Because that suits my child better. She went to state primary and will go to state 6th form, if we had good secondary schools then she would have e gone state for secondary too, but we don't.

My DD is moving to middle school soon, the building is in a pretty shabby state and yes, the class sizes will be big. However, it has a great reputation locally, kids love it, parents glad to send them there, staff are happy and incredibly hard working, loads of extra curricular. It may initially look less than great but try to go on the opinions of people who send their kids there, this will tell you a lot more than just having a look around.
DD is currently in a great first school with 30 to a class, she’s exceeding in everything and loves school.

It’s not that your children are disadvantaged OP, they are the same as the vast majority. It’s more that they aren’t unfairly advantaged.
Students from private schools have an elevation in grades compared to if they had gone to state schools (if a private school parent asked themselves honestly if their child would have got the same grades/level of confidence if they had gone to the local bog-standard comp, they would admit they wouldn’t have).
Hopefully universities will make adjustments for state school students when it comes to grades/interviews/personal statements/supra-curricular.

Hey OP you won’t ever get a reasonable discussion here unfortunately. I’m home schooling my 4yo because the school options are awful, inner city ldn. Just think of the posts you see here everyday- schools crumbling, primary age children being assaulted etc. I can’t put mine through that. You are right to be concerned.

DS went to a rough as a badgers arse comp, he is in his early twenties and got all A grades at A level and then a place on a very competitive degree apprenticeship. I think mYbe a couple of thousand people applied for 25/30 places.

Your children will have a level of natural intelligence, plus your enthusiasms, their peer group and then their education. A good indicator of outcome educationally is level of Mothers education. I also went to a shitty comp, I think when league tables were first published which was after I left, my old schoolhad a 20% pass rate for maths and English. I went to an RG University.

This gets trotted out every time. It's increasingly rare for teachers not to be qualified in the private sector and those that are are usually training alongside. Academies (state) can equally employ non QTS staff.

Can’t be uk surely

We have such a range of schools in our area. I think it does depend on the area, school and intake. In our area, we have some of the top grammars in the country, with some absurd number of children vying for a place, a very good Catholic girls' school and a less good Catholic boys' school, an excellent sixth form college, an "up-and-coming" academy run on pseudo-military lines, a bog-standard comprehensive and a (by all accounts) awful comprehensive which now has a new head and is having additional resources poured into it.

There is also one of the top private schools in the county, an "alternative" private school for children with whom mainstream education doesn't agree, an SEN private school and very good girls' school. However, the girls' school has the reputation of being somewhat pressured and the top school has an incident recently which many feel has called into question the quality of its pastoral care and the stress that the children there are under.

It is possible for a child living in our street to end up in any of these schools depending on ability, need, parental preference, income, gender and religious affiliation, amongst other things. I realise that it may be unusual outside of densely populated urban areas to have such a range of schools.

It's very difficult to say that any children in our area are "missing out" purely from not going private due to the range of private and state schools. Certainly the grammar schools have great facilities (swimming pools, sports courts etc) and parents there would probably think they were getting a "private" standard of education for free. Meanwhile the two comprehensives have quite limited facilities in comparison and both have been implicated in the crumbling concrete scandal. The SEN school obviously caters for children with particular needs and the "alternative" private has quite a limited range of resources compared to the other schools. And there are quite of lot of parents who are relieved that their children aren't in the pressurised atmosphere of the local privates and they don't have that financial pressure.

It's very difficult to work out who is missing out on what! I'm glad that we still have a few years until we have to consider secondary options for DC1 because I must admit I'm flummoxed by it all.

So are private better or not? There is SO much double thinking on these threads and so much bashing of children who attend private schools. On the one hand, people are desperate to say that state is just as good, they went to Oxbridge from state etc but in the same breath they'll say private kids have had an unfair advantage and wouldn't have done as well in state. Which is it?
All these threads do is run for pages and pages of anecdata stated as though it proves anything at all. The simple truth is that some schools are better than others in terms of facilities, leadership, teaching and demographic / behaviour. You find what fits your child within your means and God help you if you need SEN catered for and can't navigate the system to gain appropriate support.

Wow this sounds absolutely mental. We have none of that here. Literally choice of 2 primaries, one catholic (so can’t use that as that’s not our religion) and one non catholic a small primary which is 92% children with English as a foreign language which isn’t really ideal either

I'd base it on more than the infrastructure. My DD is at a state primary which is falling down (old Victorian school) but she's getting a great education. DS goes to a private school now as he gets better support for his dyslexia and was in an incredibly disruptive class. Weirdly both of my children who were at the same state primary have had very different experiences which goes to show it really does depend on the child.

Same here.
Buildings are not what matters. Parental input is the most important at primary level.

I've taught for nigh on 20 years. Only 1 school had lockers. It's not usual

I've taught classes of 34. Secondary

Most areas don't have grammars

Both of my children come from bogstandard comps, where a lot of kids smoke weed.

They both went to universities where a large proportion of their cohort went to private schools. They were amazed at just how many of these kids were already addicted to ketamine and cocaine. In some private schools they start in year 8.

Their parents appear to have no idea.

Class sizes of 30 are fairly standard in most state schools and not really a problem.

Teachers in state schools who do not have QTS are paid on the unqualified teacher scale. They exist. Mostly foreign trained who are in the process of getting QTS through the assessment route.

So are private better or not? There is SO much double thinking on these threads and so much bashing of children who attend private schools. On the one hand, people are desperate to say that state is just as good, they went to Oxbridge from state etc but in the same breath they'll say private kids have had an unfair advantage and wouldn't have done as well in state. Which is it?

@RhaenysRocks I agree. Not only do posters say state schools are just as good, plenty say they’re better than private schools.
That’s great - but in that case why the desire from some posters to abolish private schools?

How many is a large proportion? 560 000 kids go to indy schools, what % was the cohort you are talking about? Are we taking about a handful of kids because sorry that's just not representative any more than me saying knife crime is more prevalent in state schools.

Anecdotally, as another poster has said, if teens round here want drugs then the kids at the nearest private school are the likely suppliers. Yes, it gets good results, but it is a selective school so of course it should.

@SlipperyLizard if it is known that private school children are supplying drugs to the state school, then why isn’t something being done about it?

My ds is at an independent.

He was utterly miserable at his state primary. He was bullied because he liked maths and didn't like football. By 10 he was angry, lonely, miserable, disengaged. The state school he was allocated was in special measures. Even Ofsted said it wasn't safe.

Ds won a scholarship at a small, unfashionable, rural independent. It isn't smart, the facilities aren't any different than a state senior school, except that they have an outdoor 1980s pool.

The difference is the lack of disruption. lack of bullying. smaller class sizes - 20 per class. Teachers who lead the same classes every day. Calm consistency. No smoking, no phones. No drugs. No knives

I was a 56yo single mum when we started, the (half) fees took every penny but within six months ds was a different child, happy, engaged, with friends. He's in the lower 6th now. I'm still struggling with the fees but we're nearly there. I'm tired. I haven't had nights out or takeaways or anything other than necessities since he joined but I was determined ds would have as good an education as I had (1980s state grammar).

I hate people saying that private school parents are all rich. It isn't true.

30 in a class is standard in my experience - I dont think any of my primary or secondary education ever meant a class of less than about 28-30 (I was at school 1980-1992).

I think to assume a private education is better is foolish and naive. Yes it "can" be better and "can" lead to "better" things - but none of that is a given. Ive heard appalling anecdotes from friends about their childrens private school education - of a sort that wouldnt happen in a state school.

Plus there is a stigma attached from having been to private school. Personally Id rather my kids did well because they did well - not because Ive spent a fortune and they've been given an unfair advantage.

Ditto. In fact, my state-educated child has a group of lovely, kind, fun friends. Her privately educated cousin has had awful bullying and bitchiness at both her private prep (primary) and now, horrifically, also at her private senior school, and the safeguarding/ pastoral care is very poor - the school wants to protect its income at all costs.

My child would have been eaten alive at private senior.

Don't judge based on tatty classrooms.

Cambridge + one other Russell group. The stories they come home with about the drugs/eating disorders/mental health are really sad. Private school messes you up.

I'm not sure my Oxbridge DC would agree!

1. Plenty of people can afford to privately educate their children but opt for state schools instead.
2. Some state schools are obviously better than others. My guess is those who have the option of state or private only choose state because they have access to good state schools in relatively affluent areas. I struggle to believe that any parent would choose to send their child to a school that requires improvement or is in a catchment area with lots of knife wielding gangs. My parents had no choice and sent me to an average state school in a deprived area. It was a girls school and, save for me and my best friend, every girl in our class was either pregnant, taking or dealing drugs or had a criminal record by 16. I’m now a City lawyer at one of the best law firms in the world earning a 6 figure salary.
3. Teach your child to read and to love books and they will do very well at school, whether they are privately educated or not.