to think it was a mistake to give a damn about education?

[AbbyLubber]

Ok, I know some will really disagree about this, but I am fed up. Really furious. I earn a solid, not great wage; so too dh. We have two children. We've scrimped and struggled and sweated to pay for them to go to independent schools, because they are both bright and because here in Oxfordshire the local state schools in our area are dreadful, really dreadful. We're almost at the end of our rope financially. My son has a scholarship, but the schools say we earn too much to qualify for a bursary, though they also admit that we don't actually earn enough to pay the fees over the long term.

WTF? AIBU to think that if we don't earn enough to pay the fees then that should BE a benchmark for help? I get that it's political, that they want to keep their charitable status, but surely this is madness? Perhaps I should add that we don't have a fine art collection we can sell, or rich parents... as per the ludicrous inquiry form the school sent around.

Isn't ANYONE else cross that soon unemployed single mums and the rich will be the only ones able to send their dcs to a good school of their choice - unless of course you pay in the other way, by buying a 675k house in the tiny Cherwell catchment area? Not that I'm against unemployed single mums and their kids - the more the merrier - but I wonder now why I worked full-time when my dcs were small to earn a decent wage.

Double the 5K per year alexsdad and you will be there for about half of them.

Indeed not, Cory. But they are in ours!

Alexsdad, I wish. Where we live 300 miles from London, so no London weighting here), secondary fees are 4k per term!

Betty - do you have personal experience of a teenager being bullied in a 'failing' school?

I have experience of my daughter being driven to the point of madness by persistent and sustained bullying at her excellent selective school - not for being swotty but for being sporty. I also know of a child who threw herself off a bridge after bullying - she went to a local private school.

DD is now considered 'brainy' at her new sink comp. No bullying there. Zero tolerance on any of that kind of crap. You can't just write off comp schools on massive sweeping generalisations, especially if you have no personal experience of what actually sending your child to a bog standard comp actually entails.

I admit I was full of trepidation. And you know what, the sky didn't fall in. DD didn't get her head flushed down the loo Grange Hill stylee. She is doing very well and I am pleased with the school. A bit less earnest middle class hand-wringing is needed.

YABU
On the basis that the Cherwell catchment area is not that tiny and you can get a house in it for a lot less than 675K.

I understand your thinking alexsdad, you are flawed by the fact that a state school place is free, paid for by the government, isn't it about 3.5k per child per year? The 100k isn't going to move with the children who 'repatriate' to a state school, it's an additional 3.5k for the lea to find to fund the state place. The parents just don't have to pay school fees as a state education is 'free'

bellecfb No - I realise the suggestion is cloud cuckoo land, but initially it was more of an illustration of the effort and ends to which parents with children in private education go to - and what could be achieved if all that was transferred.

I agree the £5K per child would not be all extra - as I mentioned, you would need to fund aother teacher. But it is still over the £3.5K, and I am betting £5K may well be an underestimation of a years school fees! Just trying to ake a point though, rather than seriosuly suggesting a marxian utopia!

If you can't afford to send your child to private school, then you can't afford to send your child to private school. Why is this a surprise?

There are a lot of posts here complaining about 'entitlement culture'. This seems a prime example.

Private schools are businesses first and providers of education second. And they need to be "reassuringly expensive" to attract the clientele they are after.

Abby sorry missed your post upthread- we wandered off for lunch!

no, we HE because we were worried about our dcs' school and its constant drive for SATs and league tables success- at the expense of learning. We wanted our dcs to learn and have some sort of a childhood, not burn out at 8

Although we generally find home ed a positive experience, I think they'll be back in (state!) school again sooner rather than later...I do, I find, have massive reservations about taking children out of their local community.

Ds's fees are a little over double your estimate. They vary, top whack is Eton et al at 25K a year, there's cheaper ones aswell.

You forget about the extra classes needed to cope with the influx, the extra staff, extra books, extra computers etc.... It's cheaper to keep some of them in a private school.

I don't think I'm entitled to anything, school fees are a very good contraceptive though.

So move somewhere with better state schools. It might mean you commute an extra 30 minutes but it's worth it. Bucks is the next county along and still has grammars.

Take in a lodger. Look at home education. Get creative.

Or concentrate on improving the local state school. Get some of the other mums involved. Get on the PTA or the board of govenors. There are other ways to do it than to pay for it.

"Meaningful acquaintance". Get you. They do stuff to keep their charitable status, but they are run as efficient businesses.

GetOrfMoiLand - you got there first with the head-downn-the-loo thing.

Some of the fears people seem to have regarding state schools are the same ones we as children had before moving to secondary from primary - there were an awful lots of myths.

Which isn't to say that it doesn't happen.

FWIW my friend (secondary school teacher in an OK school in a very deprived area) tells me that pupils who work "too hard" are not bullied by other pupils, but by their parents. They do their homework at school so their parents don't find out.

Am I cynical to suggest that the majority of private schools are registered as charitable trusts to gain significant tax advantages, as opposed to a genuine and heartfelt desire to educate?

And that offering bursaries to poor families is part of keeping that charitable status, and not from a burning zeal to open up their school to the less advantaged.

"but they are run as efficient businesses"

Only in so much that if they don't they go bust unlike many state schools who just go with their hands out to parents/church/LEA

smallwhitecat - I have to disagree with you regarding state schools' priorities.

"they're not run to lose money. Another respect in which they differ from their state counterparts."

To which I say "No-one, I think, who had any meaningful acquaintance with a state school would make that claim."

Hoist by your own petard there.

If you can't afford the fees then you can't afford private schooling. It's as simple as that.

I like unquietdad's comment! Do you seriously think that because your DCs are bright they are some how entitled to a private education? Amazingly there are a lot of bright kids in state schools.

I would like to know how you plan to get your bright kids through uni if you're struggling to pay private school fees at the moment. Your DCs are hardly going to be happy if they get great grades but you can't afford the uni costs. What a waste of money the private school fees would be then!

Are state schools not run like a business? They also have bursars, they also raise funds, pay teachers salaries etc. They are also funded per child, the same as a private school but the funds don't come directly from the parents. They don't go bust, they just stop buying text books/don't decorate/stop school trips/reduce staff numbers.

I have first-hand knowledge of funding problems in state schools too. That doesn't mean they are causing these problems intentionally.

If private schools were properly "charitable" they'd let anyone and everyone in without charging vast fees. But that isn't what they do, and isn't what they are designed to do, despite what the OP would like.

Universtiy fees are alot less then the vast majority of private school fees Journey.