If you send your child to private school…

[Quej]

Do you genuinely think it’s worth it or do you regret it… and why?

Mine still play out with their friends from their state primary school!

If one wants decent schooling you can either pay for private school or you can pay for the house next to the outstanding state school.

Both scenarios have a paywall.

My friends privately educated kids - ones a builder, ones a hairdresser

Not all private schools cost that much. In the north-west it is around £18K a year, which works out at less than £1500 a month. I pay that as a single parent, out of a salary that is only just over half of yours, by cutting back spending in other areas (no holidays etc...)

My DS in private school but its only 5k for the year, not per month. We are in Ireland. It's a great school with a fantastic history. There are still some little shits in his year though....local state schools poor selection. One has a huge furry community so that was a hard no 🙈

Are they happy?
Ours aren’t privately educated because we think it will get them into any particular career. We do it for their happiness now.

No regrets for me - we did secondary at private, all the local schools were either massively oversubscribed or poorly run.

Both DCs enjoyed their experience with good GCSEs and A levels. Extra curric also good plus extra teaching support at lunch time. They were that sporty other than the usual PE activities. They also did DofE.

Nice holidays woulda been better use of the money

Small with little bad behaviour is better suited to most kids surely. That's not specific to your child

Absolutely the same for us. No regrets. We do have some family support with the fees.

My DC have had a lovely school experience so far.
Another unexpected bonus was that we made some good friends amongst the parents, which I wasn’t expecting at all, and I hope these friendships will last many years to come.

1000% been worth it. Equally I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when GCSEs are over (2yrs….) as the expense is a strain. My DD would not have thrived in Y7 in the massive state secondaries we have local to us. She was so timid and overwhelmed. Her current school has brought out of her shell and she’s so confident and looking forward to going to a bigger 6th form. At the same time she has (and always has) recognised and embraced the opportunities her private school offers her.

Because teenagers often get up to no good when unsupervised, bored and hanging around. The trouble starts when they stop playing and start experimenting.
When all your friends live a few miles away, you're more content to do your homework, watch a bit of TV and chat to your friends on the phone. You're not putting pressure on your parents to let you go out every evening to hang around.

I think basic expectations are classroom control, which is woefully inadequate in many cases. A lot of state teachers are just burnt out and going through the motions, which can make the environment very negative for the children because they can't be relied upon to keep control and maintain a positive learning environment.

A lot of children do not feel physically safe in mainstream schools and so many parents are expressing concerns at the situation across the country that it is not isolated incidents. I think this point is just being brushed aside and not taken as seriously as it should

Plus there is an inconsistency in the quality of teachers. Not all are as good as they should be. There are some bright ones that do make a difference but then that hard work is often undone by mediocre or under performing teachers. I think that this is a taboo subject rarely acknowledged because parents who question teaching standards are often demonised as being difficult. Couple that with a weak SLT and the environment is inevitably negative.

There is clearly a crisis in education that needs to be addressed; however many parents won't stand by and watch their children be swallowed up in the problems. Hence the rise in home education and private school support.

We had no intention of going down this path but our local high school is terrible. Both the results and the behaviour. Starting next year and I hope it’s worth it.

Worth it so far - DS 5 has ASD and benefits from smaller class sizes, inclusive environment, greater pastoral care better resources - on site occupational therapist and psychologist. Campus is amazing goes all the way to 18 - 9 sport halls, arts centre, stem centre, outdoor amphitheatre, it's own forest, amazing community atmosphere. Over 100 extra curricular activities. Worth every penny so far.

Not UK but very good local state schools. We wanted to send our DC to private school because she is profoundly gifted - the state school approach is to accelerate kids but our DC struggles with social/emotional and the gifted private schools offer a stronger focus for this alongside developmentally appropriate academics. While we want DD to be able to get along with everyone, she IS significantly different from her classmates and can struggle to make deep connections. In the end, she did not get a place (less than 10% acceptance rates for primary!) and is at our local school. The social emotional support has been really strong but academics are going to be a problem in a year or two. If her school didn’t have such unusually good special ed, we would probably continue trying for private school. I wouldn’t have any regrets about the cost but it also wouldn’t be a huge burden. We will certainly consider it for her next school transition. If we were in the UK, based on what I have heard about the insanely large class sizes and extremely poor SEN provision, no way would we be doing state school.

Name changed for this. I am a teacher in a state school but sent my children to private school from year 7 and 8 and have zero regrets. So many state schools simply aren’t good enough and are letting children down. Between being a teacher myself and my oldest child attending a state secondary for a year, I had seen enough to know that I was gambling with their futures to send them to that state secondary. Oldest started a great private school in year 8 and youngest in year 7.

The smaller class sizes, huge number of extra curricular activities, community feel and the excellent pastoral care really benefitted our children. Both children are academic, but it was definitely more about their happiness and safety. They both had such a happy secondary school experience there.

So many children don’t achieve their potential at state schools due to lack of resources, opportunities, unsafe environment and sadly through mixing with children whose parents at best don’t encourage them and at worst teach them to disrespect their school and the consequences for staff and students of that.

My advice is that if you can afford private school, find a good one that suits your child and send them.

State schools vary enormously. Private schools vary even more as they are designed to cater for different needs, often ones that are not being provided for by the state. The majority of private schools are special schools. Some private schools are very academically selective but most aren't. Many private schools have very international cohorts with a high number of children who move schools as their parents move jobs around the world.

Some state schools are very academically selective but some aren't. Some of them have quite a diverse student body but an awful lot don't . I used to work in a secondary school that was all girls from a small catchment area. 98% were the same ethnicity and the same religion and probably from the same socio economic background. They were very nice but I don't see how they would relate to a wide range of people. My village state primary was 100% white and obviously all the children were from my village. I came from an international private school in South America and was a total fish out of water. The state secondary school in my local town had a very similar cohort.

Yes definitely worth it. My children have been in private school since they were 3 and honestly there hasn't been one day they haven't wanted to go.

Classes are around 12 children, teachers are available to talk to about any lessons or elements they struggle with up until 7pm Monday to Friday, the students just book to meet with them as needed.

They have been exposed to so many different sports and are taught healthy competition. They have opportunities to do so many extra curriculum activities I don't know where to start going through them.

Their confidence is a brilliant, they've been taught kindness and equality to a really good degree.

For gcses they can choose how many they wish to study towards from 9 minimum to 12 maximum.

Facilities are superb, they have so much space and are provided with so much responsibility.

It is unmatched I believe in state provision.

Around 40 % the parents in my child’s private schools (2 kids, 2 different schools) are state school teachers….
Listening to them (and to parents who left after VAT), the teachers are good in both schools, but

• classes of 35 vs 15-20
• no TAs, no support
• all effort (with the nonexistent resources, so it isn’t a lot) is put to get kids to “as expected”, kids who achieve are ignored, consequently bored to tears, and stop achieving
• a culture of “achievement is bad” among kids
• no support whatsoever for neurodivergent kids
• more behaviour management than teaching
• bullying is ignored (not enough teachers to do anything)

Our experiences were the same. The teachers are great, but they have no chance of doing their job

Moved my eldest to private in year 9 after 2 years of horrendous bullying and social isolation at the local state school. Youngest then started at the same private school in year 7. Absolutely zero regrets, even though I’ve had to extend and increase my mortgage and I’m probably going to be working long past many of my state school parent friends retire.

I’m not paying for exam results or for a career path. I’m paying for the emotional security my daughter now has and the confidence she has rebuilt. She is thriving, happy and well-liked. She believes in herself again. I feel very very fortunate to have been able to afford this solution. I know many don’t.

Our 2 are in private. The first since the age of 3 as he has SEN, the local provision was completely inappropriate and he was in severe distress. The private (20 miles away) had excellent SEN provision. He is doing GCSEs now. It was perfect for him, and he is probably going to pass his GCSes and because it is not a selective school will go onto A levels at the same school. We are essentially paying for his peace of mind, the support and pastoral care and the hope he will get through schooling intact.

DS2 is a different child altogether. He has a bursary to the school so the actual cost to us in minimal, but he would be fine in a state school we think.

Really sad to read all these awful accounts of how terrible the state options are for people. Must be geographic as this has not been our experience at all. Dd2 is year 12 now so coming out the other side and both have excellent grades (dd1 at a RG) lovely friends had some brilliant teachers and hobbies albeit sport out of scuool. Hard work was the culture the kids want to achieve. Just trying to counter balance the state school hate not all are “sink schools” full of knife wielding ferals.

I’m always fascinated by threads like this where a significant number of posters seem to believe that more than 90% of the nation’s children achieve nothing…..

And for us, private school times two is substantially cheaper than the houses in catchment of the two decent state options (primary and secondary schools). You need to be proper rich to afford these!