If you send your child to private school…

[Quej]

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

'Disaster' like in a disaster movie?

I have one child at a private school and one at a state school - same year group.

It will absolutely depend on the schools involved, but the two my children are at are very different. Just a different outlook and approach to everything. The private school offers opportunities and assumes students will take them and supports/encourages if the kids are reluctant. The state school tells them to do things, the kids push back, the weary teachers cajole, then eventually make it mandatory and push the kids into things.

It all just sounds like hard work for the teachers and the kids at the state school. And genuinely a lot more collaborative and fun at the private school. I absolutely understand some of the reasons for the differences, but it’d be wonderful if both schools could achieve the more collaborative approach.

You are forgetting social housing

My 2 children are in nursery and year 1 at a private school and we absolutely believe it’s worth it already.
the resources they have access to, the opportunities they are given through school, the extra curricular things on offer already are excellent.

already, in nursery, they have time spent on computers, they do french, have one afternoon a week of forest school (and this area is being developed of the summer to increase the activities done there for all of the ages in the junior school)

the nursery class has 26 children to 1 teacher and 3 TAs.
In reception, they will split into 2 classes with 1 extra child joining, so 13/14 to a class of 1 teacher and 2 TAs.
my older child in year 1 is in a class of 16 (2 year 1 classes of 16)

these ratios allows the children more time with the adults, as well as being split into small groups for focused activities

It is very geographic. Where we live a small city there are 5 state schools 4 are pretty good. One is in an area of deprivation and has challenges. I wouldn’t send my kids there. It is the catchment school for the pretty villages just outside the city so pretty much all the parents I know in those villages go private. If they lived in town they probably wouldn’t.

I'd be thrilled if either of my sons became builders. There's good money and lots of opportunities in housing and construction!

Likewise if they wanted to be a hairdresser!

Dear God what an appalling view. Spending time with friends as a teen is one of the best things that most people will ever do, it forms memories that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Depriving children of that so that they can study more is monstrous.

Hard agree! Love that teens here meet up and have fun. Often a mix of schools state or private irrelevant. How tragic if your teen years are spent furiously studying then you can’t get a job anyway!

I'm fed up of lazy stereotypes that all state schools are drug-ridden hotbeds of violence, with pupils / parents who don't care at all about education

My kids had a great experience at state school and would have been a complete waste of money to go private

some private schools will be good, others not so much
some state schools will be good, others not so much

I don’t think anyone on this thread has said any of those things though. I was only talking for the one state secondary school that was available to us in our area. I know there are plenty of excellent state schools, and if I lived near any of them I definitely would have sent my kids there.
Trust me, I’d rather have that £36k a year in my pocket.

I went to private school and can assure you it makes zero difference where your friends live!

in fact, it meant sleepovers became parties in houses where we had access to alcohol more than my friends who went to state school/working class families.
children in private school are often given more disposable cash to spend on what they want at a younger age, given more freedom if parents work longer hours/have longer commutes.
more kids that I knew in private school tried drugs than in state school and I grew up in a very working class (bordering on deprived) area.

Another thing that’s a “tell” for non genuine “experience”. The “state schools only need to get all children to the same average level” trope. At least until very recently (I haven’t looked at any recent changes) schools were assessed on progress made by individual children, and could not get a good grade from inspectors if they did not make good progress from their starting point.

This sounds a throughly miserable existence for a teenager. Learning to socialise with friends, independently on your own is such a healthy part of development for a teenager and such an important part of their young life.

I can't imagine depriving of them of this opportunity. Surely we want our teenagers to have more of a life than watching TV and chatting to friends on their phone. Some of my happiest memories are being my friends as a teenager out and about and I sincerely hope the same for my kids. It can't be doing anything for their own mental health to be inside all the time and with no socialisation.

Yes, my kids at private school hang out with their friends plenty! They have all their friends from their state primary nearby, but also I’m a constant taxi to take them to the areas of their friends from their independent secondary! Hanging out with friends independently is a necessary part of growing up and becoming responsible adults.

You want to send your children to private school, you crack on. But why do you need to justify your choices (you generic, not you specific) by disparaging state schools, state school teachers and state school pupils? You’ve made your choice-be confident in it!

DHs non negotiable was living near school. He had a miserable bus commute to his school with unpleasant incidents on a long unsupervised bus trip - lord of the flies. So where we bought our house was dependent on proximity of decent schools so our kids could walk there and easily see their friends.

Surely that poster is confident in their choice, hence explaining their reasons why? As have many of us on this thread.
many parents have lost confidence in state schools - you see many posts on here saying that exact sentiment.
if parents take their children out of the state system due to that loss of confidence, that’s their choice.

Kind of yes.

A great career that doesn't need a private efucation

Nobody says they don’t want to…. It’s not lack of teacher quality, engagement or ambition. There is an alarming lack of resources that starts in primary - kids staying on their level has to be good enough. Crumbling buildings and huge class sizes make that hard enough!
Progress 8 for our closes local state school is negative, so definitely not a great school. No particularly deprived population, the usual mix.
Progress 8 for the other one is just about positive, but when you dig in, their results are just above national average, mainly due to slightly less fails, but also a lot less exceptional results (gcse grades 7 and above). Not bad for a child who just needs some academic help to pass gcse, but not good at all for a child who could achieve so much more. The primary schools feeding into are also around national average with a strong focus on helping kids to “meeting expectations”, but nit much beyond that (that is hearsay, I don’t have data), so not a lot of children are predicted higher grades. It becomes a vicious cycle.
These kids are just as clever as the kids in private, the teachers are just as good. The difference is the environment- and that is before looking at mental health and wellbeing.

As has been pointed out many times upthread, many of us don’t use private education as a means to pay for a particular career.
If my privately educated children want to be builders (I doubt it, they’re both dyspraxia and I’d genuinely fear for anyone entering a building they’d had a hand in creating) then excellent. It’s a career that is AI proof and will always be needed.

The school actively refused to meet the needs of my disabled child as detailed in his EHCP, to the extent that he came to harm. They accused me of lying and paranoia. His needs became impossible to meet in any state school.

The private school could provide small quiet classes and properly resourced SEN provision until the LA agreed to fund a special school place for him. Just our experience of two different schools.

And drugs?

What about drugs?

There is a lot of things we don’t need, but that are very good for us. None of us needs holidays, more than a basic supply of food, more than 3 sets of clothes. All things that make life a lot more enjoyable though. Children should be able to enjoy school, explore their capabilities, be able to make informed decisions, and choose a career that suits them, no matter if it is being a builder, a lawyer, a nurse, …..
Private school is not about a specific career - somebody who wants to become a builder can still enjoy books, sports, science, …. Education is a lot more than gcse results