Boarding School wobble

[ArtHistory]

So my DS has a place at Eton with a sizeable bursary. I think it will be an absolutely amazing school for him - he's got an insatiable thirst for knowledge, loves his sport, his art, his music etc etc, and he is excited about going. However, I'm starting to have a real panic that it is too much of a financial stretch for us, and I can't bear the thought of not seeing him everyday. (I know the latter worry is because he is still this sweet, loving little boy who wants his mammy, and that will change anyway).

To be clear, we're not sending him to Eton for the results - he'll get straight 9s no matter where he goes. We're in a grammar school area and the local comp is also excellent, so these are the alternatives, and with these we would pick up the pieces for sport outside school (though the music and art would drop). We think its the right school because it will allow him to be himself, help his confidence, and also allow him to be challenged. Plus obviously the extra opportunities that he can access are world class.

Financially, we will have to remortgage to cover the fees, and I'm shitting myself that we will struggle to manage the mortgage. With the bursary, I feel like we'll be in a catch 22 situation where anything we do to improve our financial situation (like get a better paid job) will not relieve the pressure as we'd see the bursary reduced.

Are we being stupid putting ourselves under this much pressure? I know you can't tell us that for sure, but presumably if you're reading this thread, you understand the benefits and can reassure us that this is worth it. (Or, do you know any ways to make the fees manageable (legal or otherwise 😂)? Is there an OF market for overweight, middle aged ugly women???

Don’t send him. Just don’t. I can never understand why people do. Check out forums where people report how it has messed them up their entire lives.

I was privately educated and privately educate my children.

No one is that stupid. They look at where you took your GCSEs and some places ask on applications where you were at school between eg 11 and 16

For a long time, the box tick exercise for uni admissions was about where pupils sat A-levels - but this is starting to change, and admissions tutors are taking a broader view.

I believe Oxbridge admission tutors are aware of the this.

Well stop being silly then

What - specifically - is silly about my comments?

The bit where I argued that Eton has come to represent something very negative in the British psyche, meaning that pupils now carry that as baggage through adult life?

The bit where I suggested that the extra benefit of Eton over a good grammar school was not worth the social stigma of Eton, plus the enormous financial strain?

The bit where I pointed out that using the money to set OP's son up with a deposit for a flat or the flexibility to intern in London at the beginning of his career without worrying about rent might be more helpful in the longer term?

You are welcome to disagree with my point of view, but I'm not being "silly" - it's really condescending to dismiss me like that. I wonder where you learned to interact with people in that way...?

Specifically, you ‘concluded that I was trolling’.

That was silly

You responded to the article about horrific abuse at a boarding school with the dismissive "Yes, well, these things happen."

I think trolling is a pretty generous interpretation. Crazy lack of empathy.

I may not align with your expectations of empathy but I did go to that school and I do understand that when you have a group of unmarried men who choose to live together as a community there is just the faintest chance that some of those unmarried men might possibly be sexually interested in other men and boys.

So yes, these things do happen, surprise, surprise. That the monks have now been segregated from the boys and girls will presumably mean that the children now at school there will not be interfered with.

So, please don’t harp on about Ampleforth. What happened there is by no means unique. As I said previously, any establishment that caters exclusively for children will be a magnet for perverts. This sort of impropriety can happen in nurseries, pre-school, primary school, prep school, secondary school or public school. To think otherwise is to be, for lack of a better word, silly.

The assaults by the monk took place in the '90s and 2010's. For the same school to be found lacking in safeguarding by Ofsted as late as 2022 is quite shocking.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/16/ampleforth-college-ofsted-serious-safeguarding-failures

While the Ampleforth thing is a tangent, it does seem like a (particularly horrible and extreme) example of the "othering" effect of the very top public schools. An alternative sent of rules. A mindset that teaches pupils that different rules of engagement apply. It'd argue it's the darker flipside of the unfettered confidence you talk about - when confidence spills into arrogance and exceptionalism. We see it playing out with so many political leaders - Cameron, BoJo et al. It's why the public school brand has become toxic.

I don't see how the long term interests of any bright boy are best served by sending him to Eton. Unless the definition of "success" is an incredibly narrow and blinkered one. It's like giving him an excruciatingly posh name that he has to use to introduce himself for the rest of his life - marking him out socially, giving him something he has to keep explaining and justifying time and time again.

marking him out socially, giving him something he has to keep explaining and justifying time and time again.
@ProcrastinatorsAnonymous

Why does he have to mention where he went to school? Whenever you meet someone do you ask them where they went to school?

My ds and his friends just get on with their lives and careers. They don’t spend their existence ‘explaining and justifying time and time again’.

My DS goes to a small, unremarkable private school for very specific reasons. He does a hobby outside school with other young people from a wide range of local schools. When he’s asked where he goes, he’s taken to replying with “<school name> because I’ve got two scholarships and my dad works there”. I think it’s a bit of a shame that he feels he has to justify it. Hopefully from uni onwards it won’t be a question or answer that interests anyone. Incidentally he’s got a contextual offer to his first choice RG uni.

OP, in your circumstances I would take the grammar place.

It comes up - particularly at university. For most kids, alongside their family life, it's their main formative experience. It's the same as adults meeting - if you are polite, you will not immediately fire the question "What do you do for a living?" at someone, but it naturally comes up pretty quickly as you get to know someone, as it's a really significant part of the fabric of their life...

Gosh.
Sex, drugs and rock'n roll in convent boarding school. A different kind of education, I suppose.

It was exactly the same for me, early in my career. At work, the Oxbridge thing came up (it only takes one person to know, and they tell everyone). The next question - from people trying to "place" me, as I perhaps didn't come across as obviously Oxbridge - was often "did you go to private school?" I used to say that yes I did, because I had a scholarship and we never went abroad on holiday etc etc - but in the end it just drew more attention to it. It became easier to just let people make assumptions, but those assumptions never sat very comfortably with me, as they only told a sliver of the story.

I send my children to private school because my eldest is bright but on the spectrum, and I think he needs smaller classes to flourish. If I had a very bright neurotypical child and I lived in part of the country with excellent state provision, I would definitely go state - not just from a moral standpoint (although I do feel queasy about private education and feel I'm being fairly hypocritical by sending them there) - but also self-interestedly, I think amazing results from a state school are a better springboard than amazing results plus polish from a private school.

Perhaps I'm way off, but if a colleague is asking questions like 'did you go to private school?', it speaks more about the colleague than it does anything else

To be fair my two go to grammar schools known as supposed hothouses and the questions and eye rolling and mythology/gossip from some of the locals is not far off what is described on this thread for Eton (obviously in our case, on a very local level, yet Eton seems to be national or even international fiction level). Eton it is a quasi fictional concept a bit like the monarchy in some people’s psyche. James Bond “went” to Eton, Rowling has captured the boarding school thing in her books and generally people are just fascinated and speculating and hence every time there is an Eton thread, there is a pile on and it does come across as partly trolling, as it is funny and serious and cliched and stereotypical all at the same time.
Potentially the OPs DS could write a fictional novel about his time there given all this interest and get the mortgage money back (partly in jest…)

I know loads of Etonians both from work, from uni, from general life. A fair few got expelled and are funny characters too. It is a huge school with lots of different characters and people coming through over many years. I think the whole “burden of Eton” name may be self propagated by some ex Etonians themselves trying to make themselves more interesting. A bit like the myth some of them joke about being deprived of girls and emotionally stunted. I am sure with so many boys going through there will be a fair few who are, but personally I have come across plenty who are more aptly described as players and charmers and are genuinely witty and it is a ruse. I have also heard some strange stories about Boris Johnson’s leaving speech and what an agitator he was, even at school (no idea if true or a myth).
At uni, I met a bunch of them who were King’s Scholars and they were scarily clever. One of them never attended any lectures yet came first in pretty much every exam, every year, and seemed to live at night primarily. I always wondered how he got through his school days and whether he attended school or not or whether he was just the resident genius and served afternoon tea and scones when he typically emerged (partly in jest).

As I said previously, any establishment that caters exclusively for children will be a magnet for perverts.

Which is where safeguarding comes in.

@ProcrastinatorsAnonymous
It comes up - particularly at university.

That’s interesting as I’ve often read on here comments from people who went to state school being surprised at university to be asked where they went to school. So presumably it’s only the privately educated who ask that question.

If it comes up at work and colleagues of an Eton educated employee demand he explain and justify it - is that acceptable behaviour in the workplace, any more than sneering at someone for going to state school?
As a pp said, it says more about the colleagues.
However you say with confidence this is definitely what happens. Do you demand Etonians that you come across justify the choice made by their parents?

I’m interested as I cannot think of any occasion in my life at work or play when someone is defined by their schooling - whether state, minor or major public school.

Quite.

And a good thing too, but, looking at the broader picture, a fairly recent thing. Dotheboys Hall is long gone but was possibly the inspiration for the founders of Ampleforth 😏

My DC were bemused to be asked where they went to school at university, until I told them it was a private school thing.

Most state school educated 18year olds would ask ‘where do you come from?’ Instead.

I remember my eldest laughing as two first year young men were debating which school had better results compared to fees in the lecture theatre. DC had better results than both of them for ‘free’ at the local state - didn’t tell them though (which I reckon is a state school trait too). I think state school children move on from their school days much quicker.

We are all defined by the way we were parented and the way we were educated - it's where we spend our formative years.

Of course nobody explicitly says "How do you justify that?" - but there is still judgement going on in all directions. Perhaps it was particularly acute at Oxbridge, as people are particularly insecure, wondering if they "deserve" to be there and if / how they will find their place. Hopefully it has changed a bit since I was there 20 years ago.

We are all defined by the way we were parented and the way we were educated - it's where we spend our formative years.

Yes, sorry, what I meant is I can’t think of any occasion when other people overtly defined me because of my education.

As a retired psychotherapist I do not think boarding schools are good for children’s emotional well being. In all my years I’ve seen scores of emotionally troubled people. Emotional health is much more important than education. It’s priceless.
I know boarding schools have improved but they can’t control (all the time) how the children treat each other.