AIBU to worry because I can't afford to privately educate my children?

[LaydeeStardust]

I hope this makes sense-I've had wine!

We've got 4 bright and happy children,aged 4 and up.

DS2 is 14, and is apparently extremely bright and attends our local inner city state school which gets average results

Both his own school teachers and two friends who teach at different private schools have told us that he should attend a private school to give him the best possible chances in life.

One of his teachers actually said we are letting him down by not sending him to a private school

We earn too little to pay for private education ourselves so he'd have to apply for an assisted place (we both work in social services and health)

we honestly believe in the state system,but maybe we can't really say that because we don't earn enough choose?

DS2's done his own research and is now worrying that he won't be able to get into a good uni, or get a good job etc if he doesnt go to a private school....and I don't know how to reassure him!!

I'd be so interested to hear other peoples' views on this-both me and DH went to state schools then uni, but if anyone feels I'm living in cloud cuckoo land to believe that our children will achieve whatever they want without a private education please tell me!!!

Thanks in advance!!

UD - Maybe some kind of "Are you a friend of Fiona Millar" (sp?) test?

"How would you distinguish between those who distrust the state system but have no option, and those who actively support it?"

That's the point of the analysis I was suggesting, UQD. Think of a graph. If you have an expected trend where you know roughly what proportion of people will take up independent school places, this factors in the people who actively support the state system despite being wealthy enough to afford alternatives. Then if you plot against that the differences in areas where there are grammar schools you can see the difference and therefore the level of distrust of the state system.

I think anyway. Although it is a bit late and my brain is a bit fuddled.

That makes more sense actually SomeGuy.

Liverpool has a GDTS right in the centre that has been offering 100% scholarships for years, just so you know. There are 6 grammar schools in the area.
It also has some extremely affluent areas and the house prices are equal with many London suburbs (currently), so why they seem to coming off worse is nothing to do with lack of opportunity.

I still don't get it, Quattro. If some kind of meaningful research is to be done on this it surely needs to gather data properly from all four groups, who we could draw in one of those quadrant diagrams (which I won't try and do here because the layout won't come out right). Based on people's trust of the state sector versus their actual use of it, which are very different things:

Trust & Use
Trust But Don't Use
Distrust But Use
Distrust & Don't Use

Howabout a bit of micro analysis too. For example this assertion there's always a far better child/ teacher ratio in private schools. An anecdotal aside here so v. possibly worthless, but my SIL teaches in a very well to do prep school and thinks DS going to the local inner city primary is tantamount to child abuse, but then I got her drunk and she admitted that she has 24 kids in her class and no help at all with two who in her opinion have special needs. In DS's primary we currently have 28 kids; 1 teacher, 1 student teacher and 2 TA's (one specifically designated to a child with profound SN). SIL might have been drunk, but she admitted it's often a myth that private schools have more time for their students. Intriguing I thought..

My experience is of going in as a writer to both state and private primary/prep schools.

The state school teachers (most of them - apart from those who were stressing unnecessarily about SATs) relaxed and allowed their kids to enjoy the visit and to have fun doing some creative writing which was outside the constraints of the curriculum.

The private school teachers took it all Very Seriously and fussed around micro-managing the pupils, making sure they all had perfect spelling and sentence construction. I don't think they got as much out of my visit.

Interesting Unquiet. That's my experience of the two sectors too. Another thing my rather drunken SIL talked about was the pressure she's constantly under from parents/ management to get the kids to perform - in behavioural terms and academic terms. Seems to fit with what you've experienced.

My experience of going in as a writer to both state and private primary/prep schools, UQD, is that they're pretty similar, only the prep school pupils are generally more articulate and generally better able to spell and construct sentences. I haven't seen any evidence of micro-management in either case.

Your choice of words is striking, UQD. The state school children are, in your post, 'kids' (ugh); the private school children are 'pupils'. Are you making a deliberate point?

LadyHooha - actually no deliberate use of those words at all. I use them indiscriminately.

Or did you ignore that the teachers in state were also checking spellings etc which surely as a writer you'd value being able to express yourself and also ignore the fact that the pupils at private school probably spent time after you'd left getting creative ?
The very very successful screen writer we are friends with has his daughter at a prep school so clearly doesn't have any issue with her creativity being stifled.
TBH you just come across as being bitter.

No, actually, I didn't "ignore" that. I meant what I wrote in my post. Had I meant something different, I would have written something different. That's the way it works, you see.

LadyHooHa, was struck by your earlier comment about sending your DC private, even though you've got a 'bells and whistles' primary close by. No opinion or judgement, merely that I find it sad you feel the state sector is so inferior.

It's often, in my experience, the people who live within spitting distance of really good state schools who send their children private. Of course, it could just be that they are the ones who can afford it. I can't imagine the people on the local sink estate having the readies, no matter how much they'd like the "choice".

I think there's a certain something in having little experience of state too that factors in. Doesn't private perpetuate private? so if you were privately educated, you're likely to send your children private. Am not limiting or cutting out here the people who were state educated who choose to pay, but there does seem to me to be more than a bit of myth building that many buy into simply because it's what they know. I can see it in my nephew - privately educated, and at 14 is more than a bit scared of state school kids - he's almost wordlessly imbibed the idea that they're feral thugs to be avoided in case they carry knives or some such idiocy. I'd bet he'll choose private education for his kids if he has them. Seems a big shame to me.

UD - Having read other threads from you re: education I suspect you saw what you wanted to see in both sectors.
We earn very little comparatively to every other parent in our local area but we will still find three sets of school fees come September, plenty of my friends/neighbors claim they can't afford them, what they mean is they can't budget or have different priorities.
Oh and when we lived in a sink estate area, we saved up and moved and rented for three years, there's always choices if you have the intelligence to look beyond the end of your nose.

There is definitely a case for greater understanding. That could go both ways, but of course an actual change in which sector one uses as a result would not automatically go both ways.

You are coming across as slightly patronising there, whereverIlaymyhat.

I think that sometimes if we just send our children to the local school, and don't make massive sacrifices, lie, cheat or steal, to find the best state school in the area, or go private, we feel that we can't be doing the right thing for our DC. I know that the school my DC attend doesn't have a fantastic reputation, massive waiting lists, etc. But it's fine. My DC are all doing well, and have lots of local friends. So I shouldn't feel guilty that it's easy for them to attend it.

There is a lot to be said for children gong to their local, catchment school. "Choice" has been a blind alley.

It seems to me that there are three groups of parents, Those that can easily afford fees, those that would never be able to, and the third group of those that struggle to find them, IF they feel private school is the answer for their children.
Yes there are very good state schools and very bad private ones.
At the end of the day it is about choices. If all of the children that went to private schools left and saturated the state system it would benefit no-one.
FWIW we're in the third group and go without nice holidays, treats etc to send ours to the best school we can. In our case thats a private one. I have very good friends that will drive exceedingly good cars, have lovely horses and yet keep the children at a state primary as "they're too young for it to make any difference" , But its their choice.

I think my understanding of the state sector is quite good as I teach in a state primary. Despite this I still choose to pay and as UQD mentions earlier, I'm one who has an outstanding state primary 2min walk away.

I don't at all think the children I teach are not getting a good education in the state sector. In fact I know they are. For me it's all about the 'extras' on top, not the basic level of education. I pay for the frills.

And if in London your local school is a private one and lots of the dcs are within walking distance thats presumably ok then?

The catchment state school to me wouldnt be the nearest - that only has a 500m catchment area so the catchment state school to me is further than the prep - about a 20 minute walk as opposed to the 15 for the prep...

London/cities are a different kettle of fish though I think - what goes on here isnt the same as the rest of the country...and the choices people make therefore arent the same.

UQD, there is a lot to be said for going to your local school especially if you can walk there.

I have two bright, confident happy DDs who I'm positive would have flourished just as much as our local state school. However, I also have an exceptionally bright but painfully shy DS who I am convinced is doing so well because he's in a small class with the opportunity to participate in a range of activities just not offered at state primary.

He hates football.Yet he's done so well at cricket and swimming this last Reception year that it's boosted his confidence no end.

UQD: "There is a lot to be said for children gong to their local, catchment school." Yes - so long as you live in the Dobcroft/Silverdale catchment area, and not on the Manor!

Smee, yours are sensible posts. I think you're right that - assuming you can afford to either readily or with a huge effort - you choose what you know. State schools are a closed book to DH and to me, and I am sure some of my feelings about this are completely irrational, based as they are on ignorance of the system that would over-rides any positive feelings I might have had about the local primary (all my friends' children go there, and they are all more than happy with it. These same friends' children all play with my DCs out of school, so there's no sense in which I didn't want my DCs befriending the children at the local school. In fact, I prefer them to play with local friends). I didn't even look at it because it was a state school. I think this can happen if you've only ever known one kind of schooling. It may often work the other way round, too.