Is this a typical primary school day / experience?

[ThinkingIsAllowed]

My son goes to private school and I can't decide if it's worth the money. Could he get this experience at a state primary? He's about to finish Reception.

• starts 8.20am, senior teacher always waiting by the gate to greet each child by name, and expects to be greeted back by the child
• writing, maths, phonics etc in his class of 12 children that has 1 teacher and part time TA
• calm class environment, no disruption
• forest school once per week, including things like making a campfire
• learns to read with actual paper books! No tablets. The teacher or TA reads with him most days
• sports 3x per week, including swimming, dance and PE
• club until 4.30 every day, things like art or sports
• after school care til 5.35 if you want it. Colouring etc
• a lot of contact with the teacher. If I ever have a question I can email her and she replies within a day, or can meet with her, or she will proactively email me to check something or make an observation (eg she wrote to suggest he might be ambidextrous)
• lots of outside space so the children help occasionally in the vegetable garden etc
• good quality food, cooked on site
• 3 school trips this year

It seems like a good school but we pay a lot for it and if we can get this experience outside of the private sector that would be good!

This will depend on where you live in the country. My little one will be starting reception this year at the same school shes been at for nursery. We have been impressed with it.

She will be greeted at her classroom door. In nursery they have always called her by name from the start even though she only goes 2 days a week. If they have something to discuss it can either be a quick conversation at pickup, or through the app or email although I havent had to test how long a reply would take. 8.45 -9.00 start although from September 8.30 free breakfast club, and an earlier paid one if needed. They also have wraparound care until 6.

Forest school is once a fortnight, but they do learning outside the classroom too as well as pe/swimming lessons. Lots of outdoor space and gardening.

No tablets, priority on reading especially in the early years this is the only homework they have. Huge library for her to borrow books from, shes loved the ones shes borrowed from nursery.

Meals cooked on site daily, we get to view the menu but they get to chose what they eat. Shes enjoyed the variety in nursery and eaten food she wouldnt at home.

Trips im not sure how many but I know they have day trips in the younger years and work up to residential trips as they go up the school. They also have trips to the local church for events.

The only major difference seems to be class size. I went to a very small village school, and found it extremely hard when I went to secondary school as it was so much bigger. One school close to us hasnt got enough children per year to have their own class so years are grouped together which I see being a problem if you have such a difference in ability.

@Lavender2021thank you for your reply, I'm glad your daughter is happy in her new school.

It worries me that behaviour expectations were noticeably higher at the private. How bad can they have been at the state?! Perhaps I'm in a bubble but our school's expectations just seem normal, not crazily high. Sit nicely, don't interrupt the teacher, be polite and kind to students and staff etc etc

We do clubs after school because I only work 33 hours per week, so I finish early a few days, and DH has a flexible enough job to leave at 4.30 one day a week. But even if I was full time we wouldn't be able to afford private - so it's a financial decision, do you drop the earnings and go to state school or keep earning more money and spend it on school fees.

The school absolutely has behaviour expectations but there are kids who simply can't manage that. Those kids are not in private schools, for a wide variety of reasons, state schools have to cope with a much more diverse intake of ability, parental influence etc.

State has to include all children, yes behaviour is an issue around schools.
Public school can choose to include pupils (and parents). State can't. Biggest difference

State primary,
Class of 31
Senior management team member in the playground at morning drop off.
Forest school once a week on a rotating 1/2 termly basis.
School field, trim trails and MUGA
1 TA
After school club/breakfast club if required paid for by parents that use it.
School food cooked on site.
Some disruption in classes, class TA also working 1:1 with children due to budget constraints.
PE twice a week.

Answers to each point

• starts 8.20am, senior teacher always waiting by the gate to greet each child by name, and expects to be greeted back by the child. - starts later, kids walk in but head is never around. No one officially greets the kids but a TA is usually near the gate

• writing, maths, phonics etc in his class of 12 children that has 1 teacher and part time TA - class of 31 with a TA

• calm class environment, no disruption - no, definitely not

• forest school once per week, including things like making a campfire - no nothing like that at all

• learns to read with actual paper books! No tablets. The teacher or TA reads with him most days - yes to books but only got listened to max once a week by a volunteer parent. My sons weren’t listened to though, it tended to just be for those who’se parents didn’t listen to them. . I know this because I went in one afternoon a fortnight to volunteer

• sports 3x per week, including swimming, dance and PE - no swimming, no dance, PE or sports once a week but I think for about one hour

• club until 4.30 every day, things like art or sports - there are some clubs, art but not sports. We had to pay they finished at 3:45 latest

• after school care til 5.35 if you want it. Colouring etc - no not available

• a lot of contact with the teacher. If I ever have a question I can email her and she replies within a day, or can meet with her, or she will proactively email me to check something or make an observation (eg she wrote to suggest he might be ambidextrous) - limited responce from teachers

• lots of outside space so the children help occasionally in the vegetable garden etc - no veg garden. There was a field but rarely used except for sports day. Generally play time is on the tarmac playground. No climbing frame but games painted on the ground

• good quality food, cooked on site - food brought in. We are vegetarian and it was terrible. More a case of just vegetables than actually vegetarian. We switched to packed lunches

• 3 school trips this year - one trip. Usually a local museum or the seaside if they could get enough parents to help

I’d say OP you are getting a good deal
but I would do I suppose. We started our kids in state and moved them to private
Obviously all schools can be quite different of course

Average pre prep fees are £10-£22000 now
Having done both we think it’s well worth it

Primary school
Start 8.45
Class size bigger
Forest school, outdoor learning
PE and swimming weekly
Music lessons,
Senory room,
After school clubs, wrap around care.
School trips/residentials,
Daily reading,
Teachers respond same day.

It depends massively on your area and school.

At out child's private school, we were not greeted on the gate and apart from the small class sizes, 3 trips a year and extensive wrap around care, our school was nothing like yours. The outside space was dire.

They are now at state school

My son's class is 23 pupils and my daughters is 15.

2 senior teachers greet us at the gate

We have everything on your list except the 3 trips a year and a club every day (it's 3 days a week).

We're actually much happier with the state school.

Classroom disruption was worse at the private school due to the high level of ND and the school not wanting to tell parents the school wasn't suitable. At the state school we have a designated SEN unit, so less disruption in every day classrooms.

Probably depends on the state school. Most will have classes twice the size of that or more, 25-30 is the average ime. They do forest school for a few weeks a year at my DC’s school. Afterschool club every day till 5.30, think it’s £5 per child per day and breakfast club opens at 7.45 and is £3 per child. They do extracurricular clubs which change each half term and it’s only one day a week till 4.20, at the min it’s nerf gun club but it’s been art in the past and board games/chess, gardening as well before. You can speak to the teacher at pick up if you want, I never need to. No disruption in primary school, poor behaviour is swiftly dealt with. I’ve never heard of a UK school using screens to read, it’s always books. Generally 2-3 trips a year yes. The school has a concrete playground then huge field for sports.

Private can say no to SEN kids.

Ds went to a cathedral school as a choirister. Much above local state he came from.
Dd attends an international private school abroad. Way above her state primary in England.

Behavioir issues were at times quite serious at our childrens' state schools and teachers could do very little with a rising number of SEN children. The number of pupils were high compared to private.

You have to work out if it's worth the money for you or not.

starts 8.20am, senior teacher always waiting by the gate to greet each child by name - teacher waiting by gate each morning, knows some names supports nervous dc

writing, maths, phonics etc in his class of 12 children that has 1 teacher and part time TAcalm class environment, no disruption - hard to say as not there but 30 dc

forest school once per week, including things like making a campfirelearns to read with actual paper books! No tablets. - wild garden and gardening but not campfire, real books not tablets

The teacher or TA reads with him most days - not sure but reading buddies with other dc

3x per week, including swimming, dance and PEclub until 4.30 every day, things like art or sportsafter school care til 5.35 if you want it - PE x 2 swimming much reduced only 1 year of it, after school but you pay, many clubs which you pay for

Colouring etca lot of contact with the teacher. If I ever have a question I can email her and she replies within a day, or can meet with her, or she will proactively email me to check something or make an observation (eg she wrote to suggest he might be ambidextrous)lots of outside space so the children help occasionally in the vegetable garden etcgood quality food, cooked on site3 school trips this year - contact good, food passable, multiple trips maybe more than three with parent volunteers

Most of that (apart from class size) is available at the state primary I know.

Forest school once a week including campfire, singing, learning skills
Outdoor learning such as raft building
Reading with real books
Maths and phonics every day in groups of 15 (reception, year 1 and 2)
Stories read aloud every day
More than 3 trips a year
Special weeks each year, such as arts week, enterprise week or STEM week where specialists come in and everyone comes off normal timetables
Wrap around care
Lots of after school clubs such as football, yoga, maths, coding etc
Reception and year 1 have access to outdoor activities every day
Teachers and TAs on the gate every morning and afternoon including HT, DHT and SENCo

As others have said it’s very location dependent & school dependent.

My dc are at a very good London state (consistently on the Times list & very high SAT scores.

Drop off from 8:30 with 2 teachers to greet
Class sizes closer to 30
1 Teacher/ 1 TA
Weekly Forest school but not all yr round
Books & computers
Sports 2/3 x a week
Clubs - big offer both free & paid running morning, lunch & after school
Wraparound care - 7:00 - 6:00
Lots of outdoor space
Termly trips & residentials from yr 4
Food - probably the weakest area

What the school scores highly on in Ofsted visits is the extracurricular offered & the fact they have lots of intervention for dc who struggle and extra classes to push the dc who are capable, the also keeps the SAT scores high.

@ThinkingIsAllowedone advantage of private school is the longer day for working parents as you have highlighted. So parents at my school would book them in for a club and then have them transferred to after school club.
I work p/t & we still do activities after school eg additional music, cricket, brownies etc

Ours is similar apart from the class size. They don't do forest school but do go to the park over the road which has a little woodland area. They do swimming (they walk to the local private school for lessons) for a termly fee of about £30. They have free sports clubs available couple of days per week, or you can pay for after school care until 6pm. I think the cost is about £2, haven't used it in years. They have real books (it may help that the school is one form entry so receives the least council funding in the town so they haven't been able to afford loads of fancy tech!) albeit they were lacking books this year so I donated loads of ours that my kids had already read.
It is a very peaceful school, no huge behavioural issues, both my kids are doing well academically and passed the 11+. And as it is free we have more money to do things as a family

This is pretty much what our primary school was like…

8:40 start, senior and class teachers there to greet.
30 in the class. Lovely teacher and and equally great full time TA
No idea how calm it is but they’re good at routine and keeping them in order!
Forest school - yes
PE - yes plus they send them running round the field at random times.
Weekly school library visit and they take home 3 paper books a week
After school care - yes
plenty of Outdoor space - yes
1 x school trip which cost £25 this year )reception)

My child gets exactly that at a small state primary in London, except that her school day ends at 3.30.

Our DC reception is fairly similar. Class size 14, paper books, forest school once a week - den building and firepits (this is run by an outside company who come in). They don't do swimming until year 4 I think but otherwise sports lessons have a lot of variety. There's a huge field and wooded area with a veg patch and a large climbing frame/obstacle course/sand area and pond.

The behaviour is generally excellent, all the kids seem calm and content.

No after school club so that's a shame for us definitely.

In a way we get a near-private experience for none of the cost. I don't doubt you get more from a private school but there are definitely some great state schools. Tends to be little village schools in my experience but it's probably extremely location-specific.

DS 5 has just finished reception in a private international school.
8.30am start, greeted by teacher
19 kids in a class, 1 teacher, 1 assistant
Phonics lessons
Weekly music, PE, Stem, art, trip to primary library choose books
Forest on site - visit 3x times per week
Swimming lessons
Class is chaos due to number of SEN kids including my own.
School lunch- fillet of hake, dauphinoise lol. My son refuses to eat it obviously. Not sure what 5 year old wants that.
Choice of 20 after school activities at this age.

The things that are different to your list at DS School.

Start at 8:40 unless you pay for breakfast club. Greeted by a staff member.

1 term each of dance and gymnastics, swimming only in y3 and occasionally after.

Class of 30 but every child in a reading group and maths group of 10. Mix of paper books and tablets.

Some disruption (DS class had an unusually large SEN cohort)

Clubs on some days e.g. chess and pottery.

1 trip per year.

I consider us very lucky with DS school and I’m not sure it would be worth paying the difference.

My DD has just moved to state from private due to her school closing. We can’t tell the difference and wish we had saved our money!

I live in SÉ and our suburban state school is very typical:

8.40 start,3.30 finish

Forest school - yes all children have a weekly session and there is a dedicated Forest school teacher who also looks after the pupils gardening club and the huge school pond/wildlife habitat area. Free.

School trips - at least two per year, small fee (about £20each; more for the residential later in junior school). Panto and other random dramatic groups visit during the year esp at Christmas)

Breakfast club optional (7.30am) for a small fee
After school club £7 until 4.30 then price increases if you want to stay til 5.30 or 6pm.

Clubs - lots and many run several times a week to cater to different age groups eg chess, gym, football, drama, athletics, tennis, choir, cooking for older kids, art, French - small fee about £7 per hour. Some are free eg cross-country kids go offsite to compete.

Music - third party provision of Rock Steady and violin or piano - kids are allowed out of class for lessons. Market price.

Bikeability class: free: open to year5 and year6

Tech: all classes have Computing/IT lesson every week with a dedicated teacher. and there are enough computers for every child to use one each. No tech is used for learning to read but a large interactive screen is sometimes used as part of group work

Contact with teacher: as much as you want or need. Very proactive

Green space: loads

Swimming: none onsite at this school, only one state school in my town has its own pool.

Food: onsite caterers; a huge let-down unfortunately

Class size: full. So 30 in infants, 32 in juniors.

Disruption: not really a problem here but ds hasn’t got to y5 or y6 yet. Other state school my dd went to had dreadful discipline problems.

State schools vary hugely but honestly, at my children's:

• 2 year wait list for after school club, for a fee (and then it is just stick all kids in hall with colouring sheets)
• hardly ever heard read and although they have accelerated reader in KS2 there is one tablet between 60 so they hardly ever log the books they have read of do the quizzes
• food is processed crap, also really bad at catering for allergies we discovered.
• teacher greets children as they come in classroom (but no parent contact)
• teacher is there at pick up as long as you dont work and pick up at 3.15. We dont have email addresses so because I work I've met DDs teacher once this entire academic year. No email contact allowed either.
• forest school once a half term in infants
• 31 kids in class, DD says it is loud and chaotic. She doesnt learn much because the teacher is so busy dealing with disruptive children.
• obsessed with phonics

They do have a fantastic play area though.

Ofsted rated 'good'.