If you had the chance to put your Dc in private school, would you?

[Thisyeargflewby]

We may have the opportunity.

We are an average family, not hugely wealthy like some of the families (not all though)

Would you, it you could? If so, why?

If you have put your child in private school, what are your reasons for doing so?

You might feel differently if her education was constantly being disrupted by other children in the state option. Or if she was consistently bored and under-challenged.

How does that work when most private schools are highly selective and only admit the brightest and most motivated students?

I don't think that most private schools are highly selective, they're definitely not where I live. A friend sent her child private because of the emphasis on sports (and I suspect because her DH thought it was a status thing). I think most private schools are slightly selective because they always have one eye on their results but at the non famous ones, it's more about the money.

Grammar schools on the other hand......

Maybe it depends on the area.

There are no state grammar schools near me.

There is an independent grammar school (application: admissions ratio 9:1) and another highly selective independent. Within an hour radius, there is one private secondary school I know of which has a reputation for letting children in who couldn't get in anywhere else.

Yes, like I said, I would have considered private options if I thought that she didn't have the self motivation to succeed under her own steam, but dd had a real drive to do well regardless of what was going on around her.

She did encounter disruption at certain points in secondary school, but it didn't really affect her. The disruptive kids were never really kept in the top sets for long anyway, so it was the less academic kids that sadly bore the brunt of their behaviour. Another reason why I'd have considered private options for a child with lower ability.

As for being stretched? Yeah, there were certainly times when dd was bored at school. Particularly in the lower end of secondary when there was much less differentiation than she had at primary or towards the upper end of secondary. I had a very similar experience myself, but it didn't kill me. We found it easy enough to keep her engaged and motivated through those periods by ensuring that she had plenty of stimulation outside school. And like I say, she had her own inner drive that would have kept her on track regardless.

As I've already stated, I'm not judging anyone for making different choices for their own children. If I had felt at any stage that dd was struggling to stay on track, then of course, I'd have looked at other options. I'm just expressing my personal opinion that kids who are socially confident, intrinsically motivated and highly academic are likely to do well in any setting. So for me personally, I didn't think it was worth spending the money.

They aren't highly selective.

On average across the country about 45% of y11s get at least grade 5 in English and Maths.

Most selective private secondaries are merely making sure their job isn't too difficult by rejecting the least-able quarter/third who are unlikely to make it to grade 5. There are super-selective private schools that only take pupils who are likely on-track for grade 8&9 across the board but those aren't the majority. Most private schools will have a bottom set in maths who are getting the extra attention they need to get them from a 4 to a 5, whereas the bottom set in a non-selective school will be trying to get pupils up from a 1/2 to a 3/4. Only at a few superselectives will the bottom set be focused on converting 7s to an 8 or 9.

As I said further up, the one closest to me has at least 9 applicants for each place and most of them have been tutored to an inch of their lives in order just to sit the exam. The next closest is slightly less strict and often the second attempt for the near-misses at the first school. I'm not sure on the figures, but there's a lot of people who don't pass the entrance exam there either.

Then there's the one which is usually a last resort and in general gets worse results than the state schools. That's where parents who really don't want their kids mixing with the riff-raff, regardless of their academic potential, send their kids when all other options have been exhausted.

Slightly further afield there are some big-name schools which I assume are also pretty hard to get into as they are well known for getting top results.

On the opposite end of the country I was online tutoring a boy who was applying for schools near-ish to him. He tried at Harrow, Royal Hospital School, Radfield, Charterhouse, Cranleigh and a few others before accepting defeat.

Maybe it depends on the area.

Probably. We're not a grammar area really, there just happen to be two very selective ones in a nearby town. Students travel 20/30 miles to attend because not enough people in the actual catchment area get high enough 11+ scores for places. It's nothing like as hard to get into any of the local private schools.

DD's prep has excellent music amd sports provision, but we take her to music classes outside of school and she also does gymnastics as a hobby. Those extracurriculars offer more than the school can offer - Kodaly musicianship, string ensembles, formal concerts, and gymnastics is in fully equipped gym with sprung floor, foam pits and all the Olympic apparatus and competitive team training. There are some bigger all-through private schools which offer this on-site, but DD's prep is smaller and doesn't have the space, so we certainly don't expect it to provide all hobbies at all. However, it offers a broad range of activities which is more advanced than a typical state primary around here (I'm sure some MNers have a local state school which has all of this though), and it means DD can still get to a good level in those extracurriculars and sports that she enjoys at school but not keen enough to take external lessons in (eg ballet, netball, football, cricket, art, recorder, singing, dance, French).

She is busy every day after school with music, gymnastics, the school's enrichment clubs in chess, cooking and science, and does drama at weekends. So we couldn't fit in much more (as we have another DD too) and it's nice for us that she doesn't miss out on the other activities. Other students just take music lessons in school and do gymnastics in school and have a good enough level that many parents would be happy with.

We're lucky that it's not a financial stretch for us. We wouldn't pull her out of school though regardless of which extracurriculars she does. She's settled here and happy with her friends, and she benefits hugely from the small class sizes (12 in her current class, which is smaller than most preps here) as she is naturally quite shy and would be overlooked in a class of 30.

This is a huge misconception..lots are not like that at all.

“Most private schools will have a bottom set in maths who are getting the extra attention they need to get them from a 4 to a 5, whereas the bottom set in a non-selective school will be trying to get pupils up from a 1/2 to a 3/4.”

So what happens to the former group in the state sector? Do they get additional support to get them to 5 or is the focus mainly on the 1/2 and 3/4?

“Only at a few superselectives will the bottom set be focused on converting 7s to an 8 or 9.”

Same question, again, I guess - would the 7s get the support to push them to 8/9 in the state sector?

I can understand if neither is possible due to staff costs, lack of maths teachers etc.

Yes if money was no object I'd put them both in private. Fortunately my DC at state school is happy and the teachers are nice, even though provision is mediocre.

I can confidently say it isn't, I went through (and passed) the admissions process for both the local options to me.

@MrsSunshine2b it really does depend I think and can vary. Around me is the Grammars and we aren’t that far from the really competitive London ones so our local private schools adapt around that - they can’t compete with either of the above so offer something different. Some do still have entrance tests others don’t - some that do, do only for 11+ so can circumvent it by sending earlier

No and this is because I don’t believe in private education as it gives the privileged more opportunities where education should be equal
i went to state school even though parents could afford private- I had to work hard but I graduated and got a 2:1 degree

And that's lovely but until you have your child you can't know that it will do similarly. I had ño intention of sending mine private, but neither could cope in the 1000+ local comp. Children in private work hard too by the way. If you have the privilege of being NT and bright and able to fit in socially and have good state schools near you, that's great but that's a whole lot of other privileges right there. Wealth isn't the only one..and as has been said many times, many many kids like mine are there on a shoestring and debt and helpful family.

No.

One of mine was offered a scholarship.

I was worried that the youngsters ones wouldn't be and didn't want any unfairness.

However, my DC’s attend at state grammar where families pay to board. We have a very successful state choice.

Yes provided i liked the atmosphere and ethos of the school. . Ex teacher of 31 yrs in state sector . The classes will be smaller- more teacher time per pupils. The quality of teaching may not necessarily be better, but the extra curricular opportunities and enrichment opportunities will be greater. I say this with a heavy heart because every child should have access to a decent education. Now there are far too many barriers to learning, including some disengaged pupils, poor behaviour, SLT - senior leadership team being in denial re issues, increase in SEND and pupils with social and emotional needs- yet provision is reducing and unsupportive parents.

I wouldn’t use private and haven’t used tutors but don’t have the same ethical objection to them. They don’t support the same structural level of inequality.

I sent mine to the local schools - schools in special measures for some points of their education. I want all children to get access to decent education - I joined governors and worked to make the school better. The more engaged parents a school has, the better it does.

I do think the state system doesn’t always meet need and have great sympathy for SEND student needs and can see private can have a place here but I don’t support them philosophically.