To wonder how the bloody hell people afford private education for their kids?

[HarderToKidnap]

Thinking about TTC and getting WAY ahead of myself I idly googled the local private schools. Bloody hell!! HOW do people afford this? My DH and I earn 100k between us every year so certainly not poor, but with a mortgage (on a two bed terrace) and other, what I consider to be reasonable, outgoings there is just not a way it could be done. So all these children being privately educated, do their parents earn masses and masses? Or am I missing a trick?

(Incidentally I wouldn't send my kid to private school - comprehensive was brilliant for me and if a child is going to do well they will do well, I believe. Was just wondering.)

has anyone on this thread considered home educating?

interesting. I am thinking of it now as ds is not thriving in his state primary ..

muminthemiddle I am an ordinary person!!

My mortgage is 2.5k a month. Bills and groceries come to £800. We currently have £1.5k a month left over after that which is for fun/holidays/savings (wouldn't tell my closest friends this much financial detail, the internet is weird). Let's say with the small economies we could reduce or food bill and shop around for our electricity or something and reduce that outgoing in £500. That would leave us 2k a month which would not be enough for the private schools I googled in this area. Most people who do it must not have enough money over to buy a newspaper. It's interesting what different people will do for their kids.

Home educating? Ds is 11, I was told in September (when his head/maths teacher had known him for 2 weeks) that he can sit the GCSE maths paper next year if he wants as he'd pass no problem. I can't keep up with him, his teachers can't keep up with him. If I home ed him he'd drive me up the wall. I did try for a week, he ended up trying to teach me as he worked out the answers alot faster.

Still not with you but that post was in response to Alfred Mantolini further up the thread.

"I think 100k is a huge amount to earn.

I am shocked that you think that private education is out of the question when you earn this amount. How do you think ordinary people live?"

That's kind of my point. Private school education is beyond the means of ordinary people.

I'd be interested to learn of any families in the UK who send two or more children through independent schools, without the benefit of family money or scholarships (in the few schools that offer them) who manage to do so on £100k pa or less. Because there won't be many ...

um- quatt- our combined income is around 65k... no family money whatsoever, and DC too small for scholarships. We are outside London though.

I seriously fail to see how a 2 bed terrace can cost you 2500 a month hardertokidnap. our mortgage is under 300, 2 bed terrace too, bought 3 years ago.

I'm really pleased you managed to get him sorted Pixie

I earn alot less then 100k, there's just ds and I, no family help, no scholarship.

just out of interest, why do people want their kids to earn latin?

Because he's good at it and he likes it (don't ask, I gave up trying to understand him years ago, I just smile and nod).

latin's a great mental matrix and root of modern languages inc English
Latin grammar underscores English grammar beautifully it has far fewer irregularities

mark of a great education latin

and you can read virgil in the original

well if your child has naturally happened upon latin and found it interesting, then yes all for it [my DD's very average state school teaches latin...neither of them are into languages though!]

but otherwise im not sure why you would want them to, or why they would need it? please exlain? most kids dont even have a good grasp of the english language nowadays, since telling them they spelt something wrong is damaging to their self esteem or summat
if all kids knew the difference between 'your' and 'you're' and 'there' and 'their' the world would be a less infuriating place

Quottro I think you miss understand me-If we had an income of 100k I would be over the moon, and would have definately considered private education.
However we don't earn enough to even begin to cut back how can you cut back when their is nothing left to cut back iyswim.
I know lots and lots of privately educated kids (several schools where dd attends ballet are highly regarded private schools). Whilst I have no idea what their parents earn, I assumed, perhaps wrongly that they must earn approx £60,000 per year.
I cannot believe that they must all earn in excess of £100,00 per year-wow-am speechless.

the reason I feel a lot of children dont have a grasp of English is that English grammmar is not taught
foreign language students encounter problems later on because they will not know cases, declensions etc
Latin covers most grammatical situations and study of it should promote a healthy respect for verbal and written precision in other languages

Ds's grasp on the english language is um... perfect. Latin gives him something else to do, the same with French, he'll also be learning Spanish in September. He picks things up very quickly, however, he does need to stop saying "like" when he's nervous, because it's like annoying for his teacher like um... yeah.

This is a false construction - often trotted out in defence of Latin

Latin is important because it teaches children about grammar

Why not just teach them grammar? It can be done without Latin. All languages have grammar. Even English has cases ...

Latin's interesting as an intellectual hobby but no more than that

Latin's helpful in law/medicine/science.

and botany/horticulture

Nonsense

The only latin phrases that have cropped up in my job are

Res ipsa loquitur

and

Ultra vires

I did do Latin by the way. It's just not very useful other than to get your head around grammar. And if grammar were (note use of subjunctive) to be taught, you wouldn't need to teach latin.

Geography wasn't very useful either