To think you can’t take the moral high ground on private schools if….

[Loudcloud]

….. you moved to a particular area for good schools, and paid a premium on the property price to do so?

Surely both are using your finances to get your kid a better education?

This again! Educate your child however you like. However private schools for the most part are not charities and therefore vat should be paid in most cases

Well - some of us don’t think that merely “adequate” is good enough. All children should have access to at least a good school, but really all should be able to attend an excellent school, because all children are worth that.

And some of us don’t abdicate these decisions to our children to make.

So honestly, you would happily send him to a school named "the worst in the country" if it was the closest?

(I've knowing people in this situation and they scraped every penny they had to fund to Private school. They had no doubt what would have happened to him if he had gone there. )

The Charities and VAT issue are 2 different things
My DC's school is not and has never been a Charity. I can see why Private schools probably shouldn't be charities but I don't agree with VAT on education of any kind.

All the people I know who send/sent their children to private school also live in lovely houses in expensive areas. I don't see any scrimping to get the pennies together to pay the fees in tiny houses on the worst streets. I don't see any working harder than other families either. I must be looking in the wrong places.

They wouldn't and neither would any decent parent, some people jut like to pretend they would to make themsleves feel better

There are lots of ways to better your children’s chances in life. Sports clubs, museums, libraries, learning a musical instrument, travel, cultural education, tutoring. Also just being “that parent” and advocating for them a bit when necessary.

I don’t hate private schools, although I’m maybe a little jealous. It’s just never going to be affordable for me. I put a lot of time and energy into the dc. In terms of organising, encouraging, facilitating and paying for stuff. I do feel like they’ve got far more advantages / opportunities than I did. Isn’t the goal that you’re kids do better than you?

You are
Having said that we don't work harder than most people with less money, we just happen to have skills that people pay well for.

I’ve known parents take a council house swap sight unseen to get their children into a better school. Where I used to live a lot of parents had to choose between house in a nice area, or living somewhere a lot cheaper and going private (or living a bit cheaper and being Catholic). Of course the private school route was risky as the fee rises have been prohibitive, and at the end you don’t have an asset to sell. And your child might not have appreciated/grasped the advantages.

Arguably the immoral thing (if you can afford private school) would be to NOT send your children to private school - more strain on public purse, overcrowded schools etc. I bet the real reason most people don’t send their children to private, despite being able to afford it, is actually because they would rather have the money for other things like nice cars/ clothes/ holidays etc. They protest so much it’s about morality because in reality they prioritise themselves over their child’s education. And they don’t want to admit that, to themselves or anyone else.

The two positions:
A) person x does not support private education
and
B) person x supports parental choice within the state sector
can be held together.

Just as those who do not support private healthcare may still opt to see the best NHS dentist/GP or select a hospital with a better reputation.

The housing market, the variety of standards in schools, the use of tutors, the difference in structures between regions etc etc etc are all questions worthy of discussion, but not about the core position of 'I do/don't support the private education sector’.

And the ‘outstanding’ school I sent my kids to was wholly inadequate so I moved them. Having no subject specialist teacher in an exam year? Totally unaddressed violence and disruption? No staff / parent communication at all?

In some circumstances it is totally immoral for those who could afford to give their kids other options not to.

I slightly judge people who don’t do everything they can to get their kids into the best school available. Giving your children the best opportunities you can seems a reasonable thing for a parent to want to do.

What about those of us with some kids in the local bog standard comp and some in private as we chose what was best for each individual child? What ground are we on?

People over think it all way too much!

Exactly. And of course those who are now just priced out of school fees will have plenty of cash to buy next door to the best state schools, thus increasing the inequality there.....

Paying a bit more for a house or rent is a world away from committing to pay the equivalent of a salary per child every month for many years. Also over 90% of schools are Good or above so people don’t actually have to.

Echobelly · Today 12:04
TBF, We could afford to move to an area with good schools, but there was no way we could afford to send our kids privately, even on well above average income. 7 years of private education where we live for even one child is significantly more than the premium on a house in a good catchment area. Nb, don't have anything against parents educating privately, but I don't think it's necessarily a comparable expense to living in decent catchment.

@Echobelly
It’s the other way around for us. 5 years of private to 16 is far, far less for us than local house prices where we are (south east).

We have a tiny shared ownership house as we couldn’t afford to buy outright - an ordinary 3-bed terrace here is around £650k plus, rising to £850k+ in the “best” school catchments. On our quite normal household income we can afford to pay private school fees (and DD also gets a part bursary), but we can’t remotely get the income multiple to buy outright at all, never mind in a catchment for the good state secondaries!

DD is academically very gifted and is particularly good at subjects that are not offered in most of the state sector, so we were stuck with trying to pay privately as we can’t easily move. Yet I know lots of parents who are very pro- the VAT on private schools and very judgmental about us sending DD private despite having bought houses costing £900k+ in the outstanding state school catchments, and spending more on family skiing holidays per year than we do on DD’s school!

Having taught in many state schools, I promise you that most schools are not much of a muchness. Some are like borstals and some are fantastic and then there is everything in between.

A teeny tiny percentage of 6% is going to have next to no impact.

Largely concentrated in a few areas it will............for example, I know three people in this position locally. It's the same school they are all looking to buy within sight of........

Yep I've been lectured about how ashamed I should feel for having been sent to a fee-paying school, by friends who grew up in £m houses next to top state schools and who were sent to private tutors at the weekends. It's hypocrisy plain and simple.

It’s the same pool of people in very expensive areas the vast majority won’t be able to afford anyway.

Im so not going to lose any sleep re rich people squabbling with other rich people over expensive houses.

This suggests a very narrow view of 'best'.

In outstanding schools some still fail and in low-scoring schools some still achieve. The school is one ingredient but research shows not as impactful as home support.

Judging is not appropriate, parents rightly make different choices.

I know a lot of people who are very moral high ground about private schools and most of them are in catchment for one of the UK’s top ten comprehensives.

As PPs have said the vast majority of people, when push comes to shove, will do whatever is in their grasp to provide the best education they can afford.

I understand people’s discomfort with private schools: fundamentally they shouldn’t be needed. But I am suspicious of people who believe themselves to be morally superior to others because they sent their kids to state schools if they could afford not to. Scratch the surface and there is almost always a trade off somewhere, whether it’s via property prices or tutoring or whatever.

What if you simply don't think that educating your child in a wealthy bubble is 'best'?