To choose “poor” state primary over amazing prep?

[Bedsleet]

My children are registered at a well-regarded local prep school. My husband was privately educated and signed them up at birth, because it’s apparently the done thing. I have always presumed we would send them to state school, and sort of viewed this as a back up plan.

Our closest primaries are all a bit of a mixed bag. Two are Ofsted “good” and the closest (which would probably have been our top choice) has just gone from a very old “outstanding” to a mix of “inadequate” and “requires improvement”. We would, especially now, likely be allocated this school.

Prep is expensive. State is free. But will it be a disaster at a “failed” school? Don’t know how much attention to pay to the Ofsted as parents seem to think it’s OK. We can afford prep but it would impact on savings and holidays. I don’t know whether I’m being naive in hoping my children would be fine in the state option, or whether I ought to buy into the private option given that it’s there.

WWYD? Especially keen to hear from parents of primary age kids, or who have made a similar call. Appreciate am fortunate to have these options.

YANBU - state
YABU - prep

I always think of the old Jesuit saying, give me the child till he’s 7 and I’ll show you the man. Or something like it. I think the early years are so formational.

I would happily forgo holidays for private education but I wouldn’t forgo savings. Have you a decent pension? Job security etc? My granny always said the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. We agree with this and make sacrifices in terms of uk holidays not the Maldives and next instead of designer but but we have good pensions and savings and a back up plan of our business has a bad few years.

You should choose the school that is appropriate for that particular child.
Does not matter if state or private.

You mention that most of the people you know send their kids to that state primary. What do they say about it? Are their kids happy? How do their kids seem to be doing?

Our part of the country went through the squeeze on Prep finances earlier. This might not be an issue in your area if affluent, but the Prep school numbers gradually fell until numbers meant joint-year classes, by which point there was a mad scramble for State places before it collapsed mid-first term. So how is the Prep doing for numbers? As others have said, class sizes that are too small have their issues too.

We had an 'outstanding' primary round the corner, but it was a religious school, so we opted for the even closer one... It wasn't Outstanding. It was probably 'good' although I genuinely couldn't tell you what it was ranked. The class sizes were 30 (one of our kids in a class which crept up to 33 by the end). The all round experience knocked the socks of my own prep education way back when, much as I loved it at the time. Kids almost all grown now - we were fortunate they loved school right the way up, so it was all very easy for them.

If you can build a love of reading (or even being read to) and take an interest in their learning, if they are happy with friends & interests, if they have time for sport/to unwind with friends rather than massive/senseless commutes, if they have parents who are present rather than so worried about how much it is costing - then they'll probably flourish wherever.

Hope it all works out whatever you decide.

Why is the school inadequate? Is the teaching good but someone mucked up the DBS checks etc?

As pp said there are good schools that are pretty much outstanding and good schools that are average.

Can you afford it? What's the plan for secondary?

@BedsleetWhat makes the biggest difference to attainment in school is good teaching, when all other things are equal. Of course there’s not equality of background and parental attainment educationally or involvement from them. Fsm is an indicator of poverty but not necessarily poverty of ambition.

Most schools that are inadequate aren’t there for safeguarding issues. The case near Reading was fairly unusual. It’s often schools not assessing accurately what pupils can do and teaching appropriately. They can coast and not see where they need to improve and slt are often at fault for that. So do look in detail at the report.

There are many cases where parents have no idea that dc are not taught well enough because they don’t know what expectations should be for their dc. DC being happy tells you next to nothing. Most dc are! Dc doing easy work and feeling pleased about it often are happy and parents don’t see what the problems are.

Ofsted was still using the old framework at the end of last term. What does the report say about early years as that is where your child will be?

RI schools will get lots of pressure/ suppport to improve. I've taught in an RI school I'd happily send my kids to and a "Good" school I wouldn't ever. The main difference was behaviour and how disruptive other children in the class were. So very much depends on your area and cohort. If you are paying for prep you are basically paying for a more affluent cohort and smaller classes. I don't think the teaching is massively different.

I'd go state to begin with for pre prep and see how you get on, maybe move at 7 if you want to then UNLESS you know the state school has lots of behaviour problems.

No
The new system applies. We were inspected Nov 24. Ofsted used the new terminology and the 5 point system.

My son has had full private education, now in senior school. The little prep school he went to for primary is on the verge of closing so we made the decision to put our daughter in the local state school as we didn’t want her going to another prep miles away and having to get the bus at such a young age (she has a tutor once a week) and she will go to the same private senior school as our son. She’s thriving at her school tbh, I think a lot of it is to do with the child and what you also do at home. I think you need to do what’s right for your child, go and view the schools get a feel. Whilst the small class sizes were good for my sons learning, it effected his socialisation and it was hard for him when he first moved. My daughter is the top of her class and they don’t push her imo but she’s got a great group of friends and is very social. Pros and cons.

I've always responded on these threads that our best state school was much worse than our least good private school.
That was at both secondary and private and we spend more money on tutoring for DS1 than we would have for GSCE at a private school.
But things have changed, people are moving and people have less money.
Where are you? If you're in London, people tell me things aren't any different.

Both my sons went to state schools throughout their education both schools rated good. Both required extra help at infant and junior school and on entering senior school the staff were practically worried about my younger son based on his year 6 sats
Well he suddenly got it did well in GCSEs got his three A levels and went to a top ten university where he got a history degree as did my older son in a different field. Both adult men now in their 20s my sons have good jobs and are succeeding in adult life as I would wanted for them.

The class size at DD2s prep was 18-20. 3 classes in each year group. All girls so no issue about finding friends. I would never have used a school with, say, 6-8 girls in a class and one class per year. Far too limiting socially and for just about everything else. Our nearest prep was this small so we did travel to the better one - I drove. It wasn’t far but there were traffic issues! However the opportunities were much better then the state school we left which was struggling to recruit decent teachers. DD1 had attended stare from YR to y6 and we had seen the school decline. Ofsted then agreed with me!

This system doesn't come in until November. Schools haven't even seen the new framework yet.

Thanks all. So much food for thought. Too many for me to keep replying individually, but to answer a few questions:

I know I need to think of the best school for my child, but I find this very hard to know when they are 1 and 3. I’m sure it will be obvious with the benefit of hindsight, but now I’m just not sure. Eldest is pretty outgoing and seems bright, but who knows really.

I like the prep but I can’t say that I love it, so it’s not as clear cut as obviously choosing it because it’s better, if that makes sense. It’s got superb facilities, which is hard not to like. It is big and very oversubscribed so I don’t think it will close down, but I also don’t think it would be an option to switch to it at a later stage unless kids are very clever (competitive exam and interview for 7+). It gets incredible results but I worry about the potential cost of this in terms of pushing young children. Don’t like the idea of kids becoming robotic in the aim of getting grade 8 flute and scholarships to big school. Worry a lot about entitlement and not seeing more of a range of society.

I also don’t love the primary option, for other reasons. It’s very cramped and has no outside space. Open day was nice, but another visit seemed chaotic. I’m placing a lot of weight on the fact that parents seem to mainly say their kids are happy there and that they do well. Ofsted was pretty damning across the board - safeguarding and SEN main issues, but also concerns about early years and teaching. It’s in the middle of a “nice” area so probably protected by lots of invested parents and tutoring. May change if they all jump ship now.

Good schools nearby both seem nice - bit smaller and a bit more outside space. I don’t know anyone with kids at the schools so I don’t feel like I know as much about them. We would be unlikely to get in anyway if people now apply there instead of the poor Ofsted option.

If it’s RI for reception I’d be asking the people you know who’ve used it and carefully reading the report

The comments above on trajectory are 50-50 - yes, in terms of broad predictions it follows eg the baseline predicts the ks2 - but if your child out//underperforms ks2 predictions change in line. And at my secondary teachers don’t have the predictions, we work with the students in front of us. They’re kept in the background for slt.

@Bedsleet Only very few get grade 8 and get music scholarships though. Also parents drive this. A girl at DDs school was an amazing violinist. But so was her dad who taught her! She’s now a conductor and music is her life. As a parent you probably cannot do that. It’s often the same with sport. You will find very sporty parents tend to have very sporty DC. DD2 went to senior school with an Olympic athlete who won just about everything on sports day and her dad won the parent race by half the track. It’s just how it is. But - if that’s not you or dc, you focus on what interests your child and most of us don’t push for anything!

No outdoor space would bother me, not even a playground?

The grade 8 scholarship is unlikely to be driven by the school as pp said. That will be the parents

A small playground, no field.

It’s not that I have any issue with music or academic scholarships - just that I worry that if this is seen as the norm and kids are being pushed a lot, they may end up feeling “less than” if they aren’t totally exceptional.

I have experience teaching in both state and private (primarily state). I have seen far better actual teaching in state school. The teachers I know who have left to go private have been poor teachers. I am not saying private teachers are poor in general, just that you won't necessarily get better teaching.

I have also seen examples in both a small tin pot private school and a large and very prestigious one where the students best interests were absolutely not at the heart of decisions and actions. These incidents have involved both the inability to provide adequate teaching, and also huge and disgusting safeguarding failures ( horrific racial/class based bullying not dealt with at all because wealthy parents and sports team success deemed more important). They have cemented for me that I would never send my children to private schools. Money, sport and appeasing parents are more important than children's wellbeing.

That said, state education is very hit and miss and I think academisation is in many cases having very negative effects.

Essentially, what you pay for in private schools is keeping your children away from the masses and in smaller classes, and sporting and enrichment opportunities. These are valuable things though, so it comes down to whether you can offer your children similar opportunities in other ways, and how bad you think the children and culture at your local school will be.

Our prep had 2 classes of 14 per year group - it was a nice balance.

No way would I send my DC to an inadequate school if I could afford to send them somewhere better.

My daughter "survived" state school and has done ok through it. The only problems I saw with the schools she attended was were the noise and disruption, the lack of organisation, and the lack of extracurricular activities that would have interested her. I am very against paying extra for something the state should provide through taxes, but there were times when I wished we could have afforded the very well regarded private schools in our area...or at least the schools she attended have follow their example in some ways.

I’d go for private option over a failing state school. Having put one child nearly all the way through private and a second through prep whilst watching my friends’ children at good state schools I’d personally say primary matters more than secondary for a reasonably able child.

The foundation a good prep gives with small classes is such a good basis for senior school, whilst any able child can probably do well at a good state senior given the ability based sets they use. (I’d possibly say even better as a larger school allows for greater differentiation in ability and teaching sets - I’d rather send a less academic child private as lower sets don’t seem to be as good at state)

We sent ours to a lovely village school. When we did the Ofsted also wasn't great ( I can't remember the exact rating as was years ago). Reasons included lack of diversity and along that line. Basically a small village school without a diverce intake hadn't been doing dwali etc ( absolutely no child in the school from that faith). They had the top scores in the area for reading, writing and maths and was a lovely nurturing school when we looked around. So we put out children in a school with a resent bad Ofsted.
Do I regret such a choice??
Well no my oldest did GCSES last year and got a full house of 7-9 grades at a local state comp and is applying to Oxbridge, 2nd child has always done brilliantly academically and on track to match oldest and youngest child is also thriving academically. So that poor Ofsted school does set children up well for academics. I personally don't care about the diversity bit but that may be really important to others?
We are a culturally mixed family so probably ticked a box somewhere for the poor old village school. Bless them they even put a big map up and asked us all to say where all the children heritage was from desperately trying to prove diversity for the next Ofsted. Chinese new year was full on when the child from the local Chinese restaurant started and the parents sent in fortune cookies.
Look at the actual school! What is actually important and can you afford private and the ever increasing fees?

I can understand why a poor report for a single reason wouldn’t be too offa-putting. But this one has done badly across the board. I presumed it would still be OK as it’s in the middle of a “nice” area - my thinking is how bad can primary be?! And could the downsides of prep be just as bad?

But this thread is definitely making me think.

A small playground, no field.

Do they offer forest school?

It’s not that I have any issue with music or academic scholarships - just that I worry that if this is seen as the norm and kids are being pushed a lot, they may end up feeling “less than” if they aren’t totally exceptional.

That will be the culture of the school but most preps even those with pushy parents won't have an entire cohort of exceptional dc.

My dc go to a state primary that always gets ridiculous high SAT scores, some of this is the school but a lot is driven by the parents who tutor outside for London grammar places & subsidised places to excellent privates eg Kings. My dc are academic (one just got exceeding in everything except writing for their SATs) but we didn't go down the grammar route as I thought it wasn't right for her. Her school has never made her feel less than, you need to talk to the prep and ask them how they treat different abilities.