What would convince you to send your children to private school?

[MistyFied]

Ok, I'm applying for a new job and it's in a private school. The main objectives are to recruit new pupils (from age 0 in nursery to 18 in 6th form) and to increase donations from alumni and parents alike.
I know some people would never ever go private and that's fine but what I would like to know is are there anythings private schools could, or should do, that might make some of you consider it for your children?
Thanks for your help!

Oh I see, so one of the things that influenced your choice was an excellent training in espionage and crime. I think the OP should use that in their interview

"one of the things that influenced your choice was an excellent training in espionage and crime."

Indeed. Maybe OP should also point out all the opportunities for buggery.

Great thread everyone - I would like to say hello as I believe its my first post!

My DD has started state primary having thought about private - and I would now do anything for her to have gone into private education.. She is really settled - me not!
Also -- It is truly the money factor -Affordable for DD however DS would have to follow and two lots of fees - mmmm no!

Hope all goes well

Nothing

tax breaks? why? also for people paying for private health plans and big mortages?!

You do effecively get a tax break if you go private anyway. Private schools have charitable status. This allows them to keep fees realtively low.

Private schools are rarely actually Charitable. Only the most lucrative offer full bursaries. The others often enforce ridiculous limits to how much you can earn to claim 50% off. Many of them say you have to earn less than 17k to get half of your fees paid. So you would still have to pay 6k out of your 17k just to send your child to school. Obviously this means only those with very wealthy family who will pay for them can take up a bursary. A clever way of keeping the riff raff out.

Some schools will do a little gardening for old ladies or sponsor a child in Africa. This is hardly worthy of charitable status IMO

Very very few schools make profits, not the ogod ones anyway. All the rest have no shareholders and no profits are taken and they are charities. The principal advantage for parents that they are charities as we dol not pay 17.5% VAT on the school fees (as there are no profits to tax corporation tax on the school profits does not come into play and all excess money is used for new buildings etc). If they dropped teh charitable status as some have considered they have to increase fees by 17.5% but they could ditch all help for the poor so fees might remain the same in those schools who do a lot in helping with fees but most don't want to do that.

The schools educate pupils. That is charitable. The Charity Commission seem to have backed down on challenging this but there is a test case brought by a schools body coming up which will be fun to watch and I hope they win. Educating 7% of UK school children relives the state of huge cost and benefits those children. So good are these schools they are envied the world over and more UK parents would pay for their chidlren to go there than not if they had the funds. We are very lucky to have good private schools in the UK and we should trumpet this asset louder. They are so good that the pupils emerge with a great education which is so much better than the state sector that those children do very well ilndeed. Well done private schools.

Nothing

My two eldest went to private secondary school on 50% scholarships (drama/academic/sport combinations). They went to excellent small village state primary schools, but because of the "right to choose" they didnt have the right to go to our local secondary and ended up with places in either a very poor school (remember the Ridings - worst school in the country?) or one three bus rides away.

It was never our plan to send them to private school but we just had to bite the bullet and remortgaged the house, ran old cars and stopped going on holiday. We are moving house before the other two move up!

That said, we dont regret it, the school had a truly wonderful head (which is the main thing I look for), discipline was excellent (kids who refused to behave tended to "leave"), they got lots of confidence building life experience opportunities I really dont think they would have got otherwise. They left with better exam results (despite the school pushing the rounded education ethos rather than being purely results focussed) than most of their friends who passed the 11 plus to go to the state grammar. Both got into their first choice Uni. And both have had no trouble networking and getting part time jobs whilst doing A levels and at Uni because they know how to communicate effectively and with confidence.

I do however remember my eldest coming home flabbergasted one day after finding out none of his friends knew how to get on a bus!

We are considering a private secondary school for our dd's.

We are lucky enough to be in the catchment/faith criteria for an excellent girls RC comprehensive, and I know that my dd's will do well if they go there. The girls achieve excellent GCSE results (85% A-C incl maths and English), and 45% A/A* at maths. The school is non-selective, and very ethnically diverse, and ofsted are right to award it outstanding on multiple occasions.

So why are we considering a private education? Well, because the excellent secondary school does not have a 6th form. The girls either feed into a 6th form college, which has 1500 students and gets average results, or compete to join a school sixth form. I know that my dd's will do well in their GCSE's at the comp, but how will they do in their A'Levels? Ultimately, universities select students by the A' Levels, and only use the GCSE results as a guide.

My school had no sixth form, and I struggled socially. I think that a sixth form is the centre piece of a school, and I want one for my children. That is my reason for considering private education. The school we are looking at is similar to our favoured comprehensive. It gets good results, and is not very selective. The children are also ethnically diverse, and they appear to come from ordinary families such as ours.

The terrifying fact that our local Utterly Outstanding primary grades pupils work as 'well done' and 'close enough'.
There is no such thing as 'close enough' in mathematics, grammar, etc ad nauseam.

I put my son in an independent school, despite some moral misgivings.

Reasons were simple; smaller class sizes (he has a medical condition which makes this particulalry beneficial), lots of sports and art he wouldn't get at local City sttae school, emphasis on becoming a well-rounded person, not just taregt driven (developing the individual), C of E school,proximity to us and proper schoool lunches. And good out-of school activities and aftercare club. Pretty convincing apart from the fact it is crippling financially!

Just a quick note to update you all. I didn't get the job but I did get through to the final 4 for the last part of the interview and the took ages to decide as they said we all had really good qualities!
I did tell them that I had done some research on here prior to the interview and they were very interested in the findings so thanks so very much for all your help!
The interview has filled me with confidence to be ready for the next job that comes my way.
And I have to say, the staff and pupils were wonderful!
Thanks again for everything - it has been a great help!

Bad luck, but well done in getting through to the final four.
Best wishes for your job-hunting.

Final 4 is very good. Keep applying.

In the main private schools offer small classes , as small as 6. Therefore teaching would almost be on a 1-1 level. Most private schools have well behaved children (not always), so no disruptive lessons. The childrenhave anormal social life and not a clostered one as someone here remarked. They still offer after school activities but most are charged for. Confidence is usually marked in private schools. If I had had the money then all of my chilren would have gone to private school. Having said that ,in spite of the disruptives in class my children have done quite well. I was in secondary education for 12 years after moving over from commercial management and worked in the SEN dept

Good wrap around care and holiday clubs. Many people have to work hard to give their child a private school education

We're currently abroad, so getting a taste of private-style education in a british school. The key difference that we have noticed is the impact of the specialist teachers. I have a dd 9 and dd 4. Both have specialist ITC, swimming, PE, music, design technology, and french teachers. Both girls are really benefitting from teachers who actually love their subject areas, and know their stuff.

well I was already convinced, and DH who was previously anti was convinced after our son's first day at an indie when he came home fizzing with excitement - he had had real science lessong about real stuff in a real science lab, and done double DT in a seriously well equipped workshop, oh and yeah he had some maths and french etc. At his previous top rated state primary he was frustrated with science lessons that were spent watching videos about skeletons that he couldn't hear because of the noise and disruption. The disruptivee children won awards at the weekly celebration assembly if they hadn't been as disruptive as usual that week . Teachers at the indie cannot hide behind 'crowd-control' to disguise lack of teaching ability - they spend their time teaching.
And he is encouraged to spend time in the DT lab working on his own projects, lightly supervised and guided. And they have five hour of timetabled sport a week, plus numerous after school, weekend and lunchtime sports clubs.

"Increase donations" is a tricky one, but payroll giving is highly effective. A small amount by all parents (£5-£10 a month say) can raise huge sums over time. Also, a couple of mums at a friend's dd's private school are ex fund manager types who are redundant thru choice or circumstance and love using their brains to fundraise (and indeed know how to do it). Find them in your parental pool and you are laughing...

First question is why are they looking for pupils? I thought most private schools were full and competitive to get into. What is the headmaster/mistress like - everything seems to stem from them? If you could define its strengths and weaknesses it could be easier to know how to sell it.

Oh erebus....

There's a fucking great big chip on your shoulder you might want to brush off.