Fair? Dc and private school

[gotellsomeone]

5dc, plan was to have them all at local state primary and then move to a private for secondary school. We thought that private at primary level would be a waste of money, were happy with our state primary that was 5 minute walk away and thought it would be less pressure, we didn’t look at private alternatives.
DSD and DD1 have already done this. DD2 just has y6 to go.

DS3 is going into Y4 and really struggling and we feel his school are really letting him down. Having gone and looked at a private primary we think it would be the best option for him. Looking back and having seen this other options, can see it would have been beneficial for all our dc.

DD4 hasn’t started school but if we moved DS to private then we would want to put her in the same school meaning she’ll be entirely privately educated. I don’t think we would move dd2 because she’s happy and settled with her friends and only has a year left.

Would we be unreasonable to do this? Is it fair?
Would younger to be getting a massive advantage that oldest could resent?

Do younger siblings tot up that they missed out on the holidays their families went on before they were born?

Why would anyone do that though? And why would that be comparable to giving one dc a deposit, house, car, private education but not another?
There are plenty of threads on MNs about broken families, golden child. no contact etc I have never missing out on holidays before you were born used as a reason 😆😆

@Sapienhom why not send her to a les academic private school, there are plenty of those?

Children aren’t “one size fits all”.

What worked well for your older two children might not be right for your youngest two - and that’s ok 🤷🏻‍♀️

You need to do what will best serve your children. And if that means putting the youngest two in a private primary where they will thrive, and you can comfortably afford to do so? Go for it.

I’m sure your older two wouldn’t begrudge their younger siblings moving to a private school that will better serve their needs just because they went to a state primary. I’m sure they’d rather see their younger siblings happy and thriving.

It would be extremely unreasonable to do this, yes

I think they’ll be ok with it because theyre all going private for secondary.

The uni thing is a red herring- even with two out of my three going to uni in London it was so much cheaper than school fees.

Your older ones didn't struggle presumably. There is nothing unfair about giving your children different things if they need different things. You wouldn't make one child wear too small or falling apart shoes or clothes because the other one hadn't worn/grown out of their yet!

have they got worse since your older dc attended though? If they had previously been okay but had declined I could see the argument for changing the plan, because if you didn't the youngest ones would be negatively disadvantaged compared to the older ones, so swapping them would be an attempt to make things fairer. However if the schools themselves are broadly the same and the only reason you didn't send the oldest ones was because you didn't realise how big the difference was, or couldn't afford to send 5, then yeah, it seems really unfair sorry.

Even more so when, like you say, an extra 9 years of private school fees is a lot less money for the others - so essentially they lose out twice in not getting the private education themselves and whatever you might have spent that money on - whether it's towards their uni fees, a house deposit, or "just" a few nice holidays, etc.

I can see the argument for swapping DS. But swapping the youngest one for no actual reason, just because it would be easier for you would seem unfair to the others. 'Everyone going through state primary and private secondary, apart from DS having 2 extra years at primary for a specific reason' is a very different scenario in terms of fairness than 'oldest 3 went through state primary, youngest went to private.'

Usually on these threads I take the opposite view, and argue that you shouldn't keep all the kids 'down' (for lack of a better term) in an attempt to prioritise fairness. But in those cases there's usually a reason - one DC has a specific disability or need or talent or whatever. Which applies to your DS. Not "just because" which seems to be the rationale for your dd.

This is my thoughts, we haven’t yet looked at numbers because we’re not at that point but we would at the very least be able to continue contributing their school fees. Wouldn’t directly be taking anything away from older ones by putting younger two in private.

I think some people assumed that you might want to weasel out of paying the parental contribution if you had two sets of prep school fees, but I'm assuming what you really mean is that you might not be able to pay the whole whack of fees and cover all living expenses and accommodation for the older two?

Which is fine imo - the kids will still be in a much more fortunate situation than most students at uni!

I don't know how much the school fees are but
£15k x 9 = £135,000
£20k x 9 = £180,000. Bearing in mind in 7 years, whatever fees are now they'll have increased a fair whack.

Even divided by 5 £180k is £36k each = a fair whack of a house deposit or uni fees. It might not be directly taken from the older ones but you can't say it isn't family money that they would otherwise probably benefit from in some way, even if you used it to pay off your mortgage earlier or whatever.

Although like I say, I don't disagree with swapping DS over necessarily given the specific circumstances (although the optics of him being the only boy are interesting). But excluding him from the scenario, you asked if it's fair and of course sending the eldest 3 DC to state school and then the youngest to private for no substantive reason isn't fair from any objective viewpoint.

Do what you need to do , you can’t change the past .