Private school grief

[Movingonfeelssad]

Hey,
just came to the realization that private school for my child will not happen. Local State is good, cannot complain really, he will be fine, but will always wonder what doors private would have opened. We can afford it, mainly because of my income and this created so much pain in my husband that I decided to let it go. As a self made person from a very underprivileged background, it took so much grit and determination to get to where I am right now financially and I find it slightly challenging not to aim for the best for my child. But the value for money makes no sense with today’s fees and increasing costs, lifestyle creep etc…
what is the point of being successful as a professional if I need to hide it all the time? And before you say, yes my husband is very supportive of me otherwise…

Yes I know - but I mean defensiveness when criticising other people’s choices! It’s bewildering.

@BananaPeels ,

I don’t disagree with anything in your above post.

Wealthy people are, on a statistical level, brighter than poorer ones.

I am not sure whether that breaks down above a certain level, because a lot of top doctors, engineers etc earn a lot less than even average investment bankers or consultants.

If you read my first post, I said that parental wealth and education will always be the primary determinant of success on a statistical level.

At a statistical level*

@Newbutoldfather - but then again, in London (where I am) you might see a wider gulf. You asked earlier about the truth of choice between private and a failing school.

I'm not sure I'd describe our local state secondary as a 'sink school' - however, compare this year's GCSEs results with those at my DCs private school. At the state school the average grade was a 5, at my DC's independent school 96percent of results were 7-9s (and 85 percent 8-9s).

The local state school also, sadly, has issues with gang violence, dilapidated buildings and not enough teachers for certain subjects. The music and sport provision is pretty woeful, bluntly.

We had some savings and chose to use these sending our kids private. God knows our retirement will be way less comfortable than it could have been, had we not have spent all this money on fees. We would be far less stressed about money, we could go on lots of holidays and spend money on ourselves. Other than making a choice to move house/areas (and I sometimes wish we had tbh), we had to make that choice between the two schools. I don't regret it.

And with regard too “Jayden with the half shaved head” (!!), my son and some of his friends have (in my outdated opinion) utterly ridiculous haircuts. I’m not sure that their hair impacts on their learning though. Plus they all have nice middle class names, so does that make them in some way less disruptive than ‘Jayden’?!

Surely that undermines the perceived value of having a qualified teacher then!

@pinkandgreenflower ,

But how selective is your private?

Most of my Cambridge friends are successful, some extraordinarily so.

If I compare that to CCAT, as was, Cambridge must have taught extraordinarily well.

But every single student (bar a couple of contextual offers, which were very rare back then, started with all top grades at A level, and a couple of S levels (you have to be quite old to remember those!) thrown in.

I suspect the main driver of success was basic IQ and parental background, rather than Cambridge itself.

That suggests you are equating success with high salaries.

Time and time again posters have smugly declared their university results despite many private school parents saying they do not measure success with high salaries.

Its implying high salaries equal success. On this thread the very idea that parents of private school kids don’t agree with this seems to cause a great deal of angst amongst some posters. People are using it as a stick to berate PS parents. It’s a fundamental difference between PS and state school parents.

When my dc were primary age I stumbled across the Winchester College website and thought 'fuck me, this is the education I want for my children' but didn't have 70K p.a. for 5 years (it's more now), so had to sigh and move on. They're girls anyway. Now they are adults I can see that many elements of this school wouldn't have suited them anyway. It was the education I would have loved for myself, rather than Hard Knocks Comp. My girls went to a terrific state school which served them very well, so no regrets. It's only this thread that's reminded me. Rambling, but I guess I'm saying there's more than one path to a good education.

Yep again..."terrific state school". Not available to everyone so what do we do? Expect our kids to go to the same sh*t failing comps that failed us utterly, or try to do what we can, (just) within our means (entire net salary + now additional £6k vat which is now putting us in real difficulty as I am sure many of you will be happy to hear)

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else."

There is no god.

Oh well done on all the cash. If you’re successful in this, why are you failing to tell your husband to support your choice?

OP - state education is the norm, not the exception, so look around at all those people
working in Education, Medicine, Engineering, Research etc look at the people making, building, creating, contributing to their families, their communities, to the world at large.
State educated, and thriving.
Both DP and I - totally bog standard state educated, went to university, got good jobs, top 1% of earners ( if that’s even how you measure ‘success’)
Both totally opposed to wasting our hard earned money on private fees just so our children can mix only with people with money. The problem with private schools is they’re stuffed with kids from generational wealth, and those kids have t got a clue about real life, nor do their parents in many cases.

Better spent on nice holidays

Someone will be along in a mo’ to talk about the ‘sacrifices’ they’ve made and how they’ve ‘strived’ to get their fees paid etc but the reality is - people with money send their children to privates schools and swapping your long haul holidays for a couple of weeks in France instead isn’t much of a sacrifice.

And yet here i am

"The problem with private schools is they’re stuffed with kids from generational wealth, and those kids have t got a clue about real life, nor do their parents in many cases"

How to say you have no clue without saying it. 25% kids in independent schools are on fee assistance and here the court case identified the number from lower income households

The Sutton Trust status that top 200 state schools are as "privileged" as top public schools based on the wealth of their cohorts.

‘Terrific state school’

That actually got me thinking - is it conceivably possible to make every state school brilliant and equal?

in the country, you have lots of space. In cities you don’t. A government could throw all the money at a city school but they are never going to have the experience of space and playing fields and better quality air and outside learning etc.

city schools do,however, have greater access to to culture though and more extra curricular on their doorstep.

even with all the money being thrown at the system, is it ever possible to give children an equal education?

No it isn't which why banging the drum of anti-independent schools is bollocks.
Life isn't equal, life chances aren't equal and state schools aren't equal. See previous posts of mine.
There is huge inequality in state schools, I don't hear anyone using top state schools in London, campaigning for the improvement of state schools in NE. They simply don't care because their children are OK.

I don’t understand the not having a clue about real life line.

are different people living in an different universes? Is the implication people who are less wealthy live in the real world? Are middle class professionals not living in the real world? Their lives and experiences don’t matter? Why are people who are not as wealthy or education more ‘real’ than people who are?

‘bluntly, I'm not sure I've met anyone who is 'so against' private schools who can actually afford it.’

We are. And I know lots of friends who can afford it and choose not to. Some are politically against private education, some see it as a waste of money ( just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you see it as good value for money), some think state schools are a more enriching and rounded experience… Obvs if you look at % of income versus % of kids going to private schools it’s clear that not everyone who could afford fees wants to pay them.

@CallMeMessywe were definitely people who could have afforded private primary school but chose state

we put the money that we would have spent on the fees into their junior isa’s each way so they could put towards a house deposit when they got older. Seems a much better use for the money.

Which is great if you are lucky enough to have good state schools. Not all of us are that lucky!

FYI most independent parents actually mix and match state + independent. Very few do all through. So many do state primary then independent secondary then back to state 6th form. Or any other combination of those. It isn't a binary choice.

Yes I know . I did both.

the point I was trying to make, in a roundabout way, is that we have the money. I can’t help that we have the money- I studied like a dog until I was 24 to get good qualifications to earn a reasonably high salary relative to minimum wage. We chose to have to only have 2 children as we felt that was the amount of children we could afford to be able to have choices about education comfortably.

we’re lucky that we had a good state primary school and went with it.we chose the schools that our children would be happiest at. No more, no less . That should please so many people on here as the children got the worldly real life exposure than allegedly is missing from private schools. But what they also got was the money we didn’t then spend on their education. The money has to go somewhere.

I personally think for society that is far worse than if we had spent it on a private primary school. To me, encouraging people to spend their money on education takes the burden off the state, pumps money into the economy, and reduces wealth transfer between generations.