Politics aside, is private school usually a better experience of education for kids compared with state?

[Isitbetterb]

Just that really. We have no political views on private v state and whilst we can afford private, neither of us have ever been to one nor have family who have.

Not really bothered about grades but more the environment. Is it really better than state? And if so in what way?

So many people, Including the OP, look at private for reasons other than grade outcome. Plenty of people gave given you examples of what that might be. It's not "erroneous" at all. That would suggest that all kids can thrive in any state school which is demonstrably untrue.
As to well rounded, in my town, the state schools are 99.9% white British WC. The private is about 50/50 international and domestic students with a wide difference in income. Some are funded by LA, some by international development charities, some by extremely wealthy parents, some by very ordinary parents scraping it together. Far more diversity and walks of life than the state. It's such a lazy assumption that they're all stuffed full of Etonian wankers.

Since when did the LA fund private school places? There might be the odd scholarships but that’s about it. It might also include 50% of international students in your area but that doesn’t speak for the majority of private schools necessarily. I wasn’t even referring to ethnic origin of pupils anyway as I assume most state schools are more diverse than the one you’re referring to.

I was meaning as whole. Those who are poor, those who are relatively wealthy, those with SEN and the cross sectional of society that you meet every day, not just the wealthy.

Despite what people try to portray, they aren’t your average families generally, except perhaps those that scrimp to send their child there, but I doubt that’s many. It’s not just the fees it’s the amount of money needing to be spent on trips etc that the parents also need to find. It’s less that 7% of the population who attend private schools so that’s what I mean when I say it’s not a true reflection of the real world.

Just to add, my DC is friends with a girl who attended the local private school but she decided to go to 6th form to a city comp and they became friends. They live in a million pound house, I’ve picked DC from a party there and her parents seem lovely. Their other children also attend the private school including 6th form so they’re clearly very wealthy.

The other family I know who send their kids to private schools have salaries exceeding £200,000k. I know this because she’s the sister of one of my best friends. It illustrates my point, these aren’t average families.

I think it depends what you mean by better.

Better facilities - yes
Better grades - probably not if you factor in selection
Better teachers - not always
Better communication - usually
Better ‘customer service’ - definitely
Better experience - not necessarily
Better social class - yes
Better social diversity - definitely not
Better funding - yes

I agee. They can have the positives but social diversity is certainly not one of them.

Every child and every situation is different.

If your local state school is in special measures and your child is one of those who will do better in a small class with individual attention then, yes, a good private school would be better.

Or the state school may be head and shoulders above the local independent.

And better at what? Music? Football? Art? Physics?

Our situation was a failing and dangerous state school, or a small rural, academic independent. Boy who loves science and maths and had been bullied at primary for being a nerd. Plus a 50% scholarship place.

Depends on so many factors really. But private is not necessarily better than state for every child no.
I went to private school.. my husband went to state. He has far far out achieved me!!
There are reasons beyond that than just the type of school.
I'd certainly consider ptovaye school for my kids if I had the money. Some have such wonderful facilities and small class sizes and opportunities..
But I do tend to think that if your child is in a good state school where they are happy and thriving then it's possible they will do much better there than in private. I do think the expectations and culture of private school can have a negative effect on some kids.

Do you live near Atlantic College or another one of the World Peace Colleges?

The intake you describe sounds a lot more varied than those of the UK private schools I have visited in the past few years.

It's a waste of money now that Oxbridge has gone woke and started prioritising the state schools.

@GreenSox Some local authorities fund private places for dcs with high functioning ASD because it costs less than a suitable SEND school place. It's not rare.

My ds' school has quite a few state-funded pupils plus the forces part-fund boarding places for dcs of parents who are posted abroad. Diplomatic service too. We have about 20% army families.

We have two Ukrainian refugee families as well as Nigerian, HK Chinese, Dutch and children of American forces on secondment with the army in the UK.

I'm a single mum with a distinctly average salary. It's much more diverse than our local state school.

Good, about time someone tried to even the playing field

I think there are different ‘levels’ of private schools. There is two where I’m from and one is significantly more ‘prestigious’ than the other, though I don’t know why as far as I know, neither are selective.

One is definitely aimed at the wealthier as a day school due to it’s proximity to the ‘posh’ area and it’s the one every knows about. The other is in the outskirts and whilst it’s a private school, it’s a boarding school for Armed forces children too. It doesn’t seem to have the prestige like the first one. Again I don’t know much it except no one has really heard of it which is a bit odd

Lots of squaddies send their kids to Eton.

How old are your kids OP? Will you be able to afford private the whole way through for all your kids (bearing in mind that fees have been rising above inflation for years & now VAT on top)? What about extras like expensive trips etc?

Do you need wrap around care/the longer hours of private schools? Or do you want to be more actively involved in your child's day e.g. taking them to sports clubs, helping with scaffolding homework etc?

What are the state and private options in your area?

Do you want your DC to have very local friends that they can meet up with?

Do you have the capacity (in time and effort) to provide experiences that would round out a state school education? Clubs, learning an instrument, stage/drama classes? (We are lucky that locally the culture tends towards a lot of arts/drama/music opportunities in state primary, and also a decent amount in state secondary. I understand that this is not the case in many areas of England). Turns out my DC loves drama, and had the chance to take part in a number of performances (including national competitions) at primary. He wants to further pursue this at state secondary, and we also have an excellent youth theatre group locally which he can audition to join when he is ready. He's also really into sport, and we have been ferrying him to numerous clubs since he was four. His school has a number of teams for the main sports, but he is trying to set up a new boys' hockey team (currently only have girls' teams), and is being supported by the head of P.E. to do so. They are not so strong on minority/individual sports (athletics excepted), but do their best to provide support and encouragement.

My DC's school is not the best state option locally for academic results, but I discounted the most academic one for being pathetic at dealing with ALN (a form of underhand selection imho). We also looked at the very few private options available locally (and much further afield with a view to moving for his education), but they were either super selective, or a bit bumbling but traditional, or just run on a shoe string with exceedingly poor sporting facilities and at risk of imploding due to the (then upcoming) VAT changes, or put off by his mild but complex ALN. Also, they are businesses, and we realised the difference to LA maintained schools very quickly. Yes, state school bureaucracy can be a PITA, but you have certain statutory rights and there are processes that need to be adhered to. This is not the case with private schools. There are also cultural and language reasons for us to choose the local state schools rather than private.

I think there's a lot of things to balance in choosing a school for a child. Our DC was initially ok about moving to a secondary school which none of his primary peers would attend, but became increasingly upset about it as Y6 progressed. It looked as if it would be a bumpy transition, but has not proven to be so. So far he is much happier than he was at primary, and has made friends in class. He seems to feel that he belongs, and that is a really important feeling to have.

No idea. Why the obsession with Eton? It isn't typical of the vast majority of independent schools.

Seriously? "Gone woke"? If your comment is not satire, then you are both entitled and unreasonable.

Sounds more like Oxbridge are finally loosening the drawbridge chains on one of the last bastions of privilege. Dim state school students do not get into Oxbridge, and the hurdles that some of the most deprived students must overcome to get in are truly enormous. In 2023 over 33% of Oxbridge students were privately educated. Private school attendance is about 7% of school children in question. Private school attendance still buys a lot of privilege and is still an exceedingly good bet if you are aiming for Oxbridge as a destination for your children - rather than just aiming for well-rounded DC with a good education.

Just go round a private school and then a state school. It will be pretty obvious I think. Sports and extracurricular opportunities the most different. Core education is similar, just likely to be in smaller classes at private.

Networking opportunities, from what I've been told by people who attended a private school.

I still can't get my head round the fact that there were parents of pupils in a supposedly prestigious Edinburgh private school who paid one of my state school colleagues to tutor their children - because they were failing a core subject, in spite of the advantage of being in a school with small class sizes.

My dd changed from state to private in year 9 and we haven’t looked back. She chose a small co-ed school, which felt familiar and safe to her and it is a bit like a bigger version of her former state primary school. She needed this more nurturing environment as she wasn’t coping at all at the former large state secondary. In state school, dd was considered ‘rich’ due to our house size… no it’s not massive. At private school, due to the location and demographic, this definitely is no longer the case.

The school is not super selective. They take pretty much anyone if you start in year 6 or 7. Not so much in later years and for example, I know of 2 kids, who dropped the mandatory language to GCSE and only studied single science (rather than double or triple award) as they aren’t academic. One dropped down a year to be able to do this. Both boys and I would say the boy, who I know better hugely benefited from this environment. He’s very arty and now at university, which would never have been possible had he attended the local state. As dd attended both, I can confirm the art classes were worlds apart.

Dd had the choice of applying for a much more selective single sex school. However, she wanted the small, cosy environment. She’s now at 6th form there. The money is a real bummer as it all comes from savings. But she is absolutely where she needs to be to thrive. She’s finding it harder because there’s only about 30 in her year. But she still needs somewhere, which fits like an old shoe.

She and her friends called the state school she went to ‘the prison’. I know of other state schools in the area, which are not run like this. But a lot are and it’s quite fashionable atm for academies to be run a bit like prisons. Dd wasn’t in catchment for the 2 schools she may have coped with better but as her year was a particularly large cohort, she didn’t get in when kids in previous and subsequent years have. So I’d say absolutely luck of the draw.

As someone mentioned upthread, if you have a very academically able, confident child, they will likely thrive anywhere. State schools single these kids out to propel them forward whereas those, who are in the middle are barely noticed. And one parent’s evening in year 8 (we didn’t have one for year 7 due to the pandemic) sent alarm bells ringing. Dd was described by teacher after teacher as quiet and reluctant to participate and in PE as not very able when the opposite was the case.

I would say if you are less fussed about academic outcome but about the environment, I’d look toward dd’s type of school. Your dc will very likely naturally attain higher grades anyway. Just make sure that the school is financially sound. This type of school is more at risk of closure in the advent of vat introduction.

Dd’s school hasn’t suffered precisely because of the location with an above average number of monied, rural parents. And because of this, the head expects a certain standard of behaviour and isn’t scared to ask kids to leave. The school has a much lower threshold for this than state school. As a result, the school generally doesn’t expel / exclude anyone as behaviour is not left to fester and become a large problem. Doing it this way gives the kids an opportunity to reflect on their behaviour and potentially prove themselves elsewhere.

I haven’t any experience of a British state schools, but I was an intentional student that went to a private school in the UK and loved it. We had small class sizes, little no disruption in lessons, greater diversity of subjects, and great facilities. While it may have been less financially diverse than some state schools, there was certainly social and cultural diversity (I was far from alone in being an international student) forged lifelong friendships there. This is of course entirely anecdotal, but compared to people I know that went to state school, I would take my experience over theirs.

Statistically, there is a wage gap between the privately educated and the state educated, with the former earning £10000 more by the age of 30.

Obviously there are poorer private schools and better state schools, but generally speaking there’s a better chance of having a good experience in private over state imo. That the state educations sector is and has been in a state of crisis in the UK is well known, although that I find that tends to be glossed over in threads about private education.

LAs fund children at independent s if a tribunal concluded that is the best way to meet their need. It may be cheaper to do that than fund transport to a specialist school far away. We've had kids paid for by LA due to severe dyslexia where very small classes in a mainstream setting give the support needed, Ditto some with AuADHD. There are no universally true statements about any of this but you confident assert that "most" parents at private aren't ordinary. Along with many, I question what that means. Is two professional salaries extraordinary? Outside of the SE, that would allow at least one child to go to a private school from a pretty ordinary home.

I work in one and would say if you don’t care about grades and the environment is your priority, the environment is 100x better in private. I’ve worked in state and private. Private is much more individualised, less cookie cutter pressure of state, a whole child approach, amazing access to music, arts and theatre that can never be replicated in state because the government don’t value it in the same way, beautiful buildings and grounds (it does make a difference whether people like that or not), freedom to learn off curriculum, teachers often who have had more varied and interesting backgrounds.

I can only tell you our experience but yes, private was better in every way, including:

Good teachers, supportive pastoral care
Good exam results, our children did well
Great premises and grounds, beautiful buildings
Great sports facilities and other facilities, plenty of books and equipment
The school cared about parents' opinions and acted on feedback or complaints
Well organised, relevant school trips, e.g. Italy for sports, Berlin for history
Good special needs and dyslexia support
Small class sizes, 20 ish

The alternative state schools near us:

Terrible exam results
Large number of internal and external exclusions
CCTV everywhere
Police on site because of the drug problem
Not enough books or equipment
No interest in what parents thought or in dealing with complaints
Terrible SEN provision
I counted 36 in one room when visiting to look around

It is not that simple though. DD who is in Lower Sixth and has a lot of new friends who are ex private school - they all prefer the state grammar! They find the tests hard but are much happier than at their private schools socially speaking.
One even said her old selective private schools was full of spoilt rich kids who set the social scene, did not try that hard and had their parents fight for extra exam time and tutors in the holidays and then just partied non stop and put others down as “swots”. For academic kids that is not the right environment either. I reckon you must get all sorts in all types of school.
Reality is you have to do your due diligence properly whatever school you send your child too and it has to fit with your values and suit your child. There are actually all sorts of different types of school in the state sector too. It is not all homogenous either. The style of the head can really set the scene in different ways as well as the parental demographics and expectations. That will be the same in the private sector. And finally, how a school is governed can also be quite important.
Even in the state sector I have always tried to find a school for my kids where the head has good values of his or her own and is not just quivering before Ofsted and the DFE.

The only people who can answer that are people who've experienced both. And even then, their opinion will be based on the own subjective experience rather than the relative offers of the schools. My friends son failed to form friendships at his public school, and while the education offer was better, and the environment more pleasing, his experience was miserable compared with his time in state school where he had friends and was happy. If you asked him, he'd say his state experience was better. My friend (his mum) thinks the public school was better.

It varies so much. There's private schools near us that don’t offer anything except being able to show off that you can afford private school.

DS is at a great school- interestingly plenty are local (15 min walk). They have great sports facilities, dedicated subject teachers beginning in yr1, lots of extracurricular activities, a learning support unit included in fees, very little disruption, a teacher and 2 TAs for 20 pupils in a class and wraparound care available to all.

The local state school has 33 students, no class TA and no field to play on. A nursery mum’s DC are there and disruption is high- and it’s like this in the other local schools.