How important is early years education- private v state school debate (again)

[cocopops]

Ok, here goes......

We live in the catchment area of a very good local primary school-HMIE reports are good, it serves as a "feeder" for local independent schools and my husband went there! The local secondary is ok but nothing great so at the least we'd like to send DD to independent school for secondary.

Both my DH and I work full time- the local school does not have an after school club so this would mean sending DD to after school elsewhere(kids are basically bused to afterschool by private company to the local secondary school). I have not yet been round the local primary but requests to send out information have been ignored which has bothered me a bit.

We have done the "tours" of our 2 local independent schools and have been very very impressed at everything (including academic results) and have put DD's name down from the pre school year for both schools. If money were no object, we would send her to one of these schools from the pre school year without a doubt. (We are not planning on having any more kids).

However, money is an object and we are faced with a dilemma of whether to send DD to the local school until primary 6/7 (we are in scotland) and then hope that she is bright enough to pass the entrance test for one of the other schools or whether to struggle a bit financially for the rest of our lives (!) and send her to independent from pre school or primary 1.

Things I am grappling with:

1. How important are the first few years of education - are they more or less important than later years?

2. Is it putting too much pressure on a kid at that age if we make her sit an entrance test to get into p6/7 at an independent school?

3. Is it unfair to uproot her from friends made at state school and place her in an unfamiliar environment- most friends I have who went to independent school said the newcomers never really fitted in.

I realise this is a touchy subject but am genuinely interested in views.

I think if you are considering going through state primary to independent senior, it's worth spending some money on things like music lessons and maybe looking at local hockey and netball clubs and drama groups whilst they are under 11.

Prep schools tend to teach hockey at a younger age than state schools and offer the chance to play an instrument from around Y2/3. There are often scholarships available, even if only a couple of hundred pounds a year off fees running to several thousand, for children who show an aptitude for music/drama/sport/academic ability so why miss out?

agree with wenceslaligo, the primary years are the most important by a long way.
ALSO
Independent primary schools are around £1500 per term. Idependant secondary schools are around £5000 per term.. (based in the same area)
AND
Even if your child is super average you can play the private system a little with possible scholorships in music , drama , sports etc. Discounts at secondary of up to 50% if the school wants that talent.. (which is why my brilliant but academically average dd1 does loads extras..)

CM, I also think that we try to get too many kids inot the sixth form....bums on seats, when they would be much better suited to modern appentiships etc.

We only seem to value the academic and that is just crazy

I would also save your money for secondary level if I were you. I am in Edinburgh too and most state primaries I am aware of will be preparing their information for December as that's when registration happens. I wouldn't worry about the not fitting in at 11 aspect as there's always a big intake from state to private at that stage. FWIW I've been really happy with our local state primary and have just decided to keep with state education at secondary too. Perhaps the most relevant piece of information I can give you is that I have a friend who teaches at one of the most well-known private schools, at primary level, and in her opinion it is a total waste of money until secondary. The class sizes are about the same and the curriculum is the same. Bright kids are going to be fine at most state primaries I think, although I agree there are a few shockers I also have a friend who is running out of money, but feels that her son would never cope with transferring to the state system now (age 10) and I have to say I agree with her.

Feel free to CAT me if you want to talk specifics!

I should add that music scholarships at the schools I've looked at require the child at be at Grade 5 in one instrument and at least 4 in a second, so they'd have to have a very real aptitude!

wow! Those are very high grades for an 11 year old!

And there was me thinking dd was good for doing grade 1 at 8! {grin]

I can now see she is a real slacker!

Well exactly, ds is also rather rubbish by those standards

That is about GCSE level isn't it?

Amazing to have that ability in an 11 year old!

a friend of ours got her 3.5 yr old to sit tests (3 in all i think) for a v competitive london school and her daughter was v unhappy there for at least 2 terms, but has now settled well. tbh i think people get into too much of a panic over these things esp at an early age. having books at home/parents who read to you matters much more imo. also school life is much more than learning, it's about mixing and i'd prefer my girls to do that with a good cross-section of our community. my boss's daughter has just got her gcse's from another top london school, and hers were comparable with her best friend who opted for the local (v mixed) comp. i'd agree on the whole that if you are going to pay you'd be wasting your money early on, in comparison with secondary school. i think there's been a lot of whipping up of fears in the media over education from which only estate agents have benefitted as far as i can tell.

bundle, I like your no nonsense approach and I think you are RIGHT about all the agonising!!!!!!

My kids are still very young - ds1 at nursery - but my gut feeling is that I would rather, if I had to, fork out for private secondary education, as those are the grades that will influence university admissions. At primary age, dh and 1 can help out with study etc but we won't be able to with all GCSE/A Levels.

Also, I worry about peer pressure as well in the teenage years. I'm sure there are problem kids in the private sector too, but I would imagine that most kids whose parents are forking out for education at that age will be more likely to knuckle down and study.

And, as was mentioned before, going from private primary to state secondary might come as a bit of a shock.

I think at the senior school of DD's, the absolute min level to be considered for music scholarship is Grade 3. DD's violin nd piano teachers both remark that she is excellent (in a quiet take-you-to-one-side-and-point-oout-that-you-should-continue-to-support-this kind of way) but I can't see her getting above G3 before she has to transfer. Although I suppose she might if I took the computer out of the room where the piano and violin are and locked her in there for hours every evening Anything to save a few quid on the fees....

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Socci, I agree, but there are no selective state schools here (where cocopops and I both live) so the choice is private or totally comprehensive. Because the proportion going private is so high the state schools are, ahem, very state. That was the issue for the friend I mentioned too. I'm happy with my choice of state high school but I know I wouldn't be if ds had been to a private primary.

I think the research does indicate that it is much better / more beneficial to send your child private in the primary years, and also as someone else pointed out, that by the end of primary, the gap between state and private can be quite large.

However, like you I want to send my child private, but cannot afford to do so all the way through. Also, there are no private schools in a reasonable commuting distance to where I live for primary (down south). Like you I am therefore resigned to state education for primary and private for secondary. In the mean time, I'm moving house (to another town nearby) to get into the best catchment for primary schools and to be closer to a city with lots of private schools to choose from.

I think though, that with parental support, and lots of extra curricular activities, children can be encouraged outside of school, and some of the schools in the area I'm looking at say that 30% of their students come from state primary - so must be fairly common!

Can't offer you advice because the 'right' thing to do depends so much on individual circumstances, local schools, sort of children etc but can talk about my experience. We started off from the same point as you that my dds are not going to the local secondary schools in this lifetime. I've been a teacher at secondary school and dh is a teacher too and has done supply in many of our local schools so this is definitely an informed choice. Ideally, for financial and other reasons, it would be nice for dds to go to state primaries but I know from personal experience that this may scupper their chances of getting into private secondaries so they will start at private school from reception.

I spoke to a reception teacher from the private school who had also worked at state schools and she said that, on average, the children at her school were a year ahead of kids in the state sector. Now obviously this was just her opinion and it doesn't mean the kids are more able just that they've been taught more/ differently which could be a good or a bad thing but it did make me think how far ahead the private kids would be at age 10 which means our dds would have to be incredibly bright to compete with them if they went to state school up to that point.

Although starting at private school from age 4 will wipe us out financially I'm starting to see the other advantages (not just that dds will avoid the local hell-hole secondaries) e.g. they will have music lessons 3 times a week and swimming lessons in the school's own pool from reception and be in classes of under 20.

On the exams issue. At our private school all the kids sit the exam to move from kindergarten to prep school not just those hoping to start at this point so sending them to private school from the beginning doesn't avoid the exams but although passing to the prep and then the grammar school isn't automatic the overwhelming majority go through. Also, the majority of state schools make their kids sit the SATS (at 7, 11 and 13?) so avoiding exams is definitely not a reason to avoid the private school.

Also, early years are definitely the most important - it's when children learn the most proportionately. In my experience the amount you can actually teach a student (and that they are capable of learning) decreases year on year. Think about how rapidly your dd's vocab increases from 1-2 and 2-3. This certainly doesn't happen at age 16 or even 11.

From our experience there is more of a gap than we expected between state and private primary. In fact I've been quite shocked at the difference! It's possible to bridge it but it takes time and we've found we need to keep our ds's confidence going as he finds himself in the middle of the class rather than towards the higher ability end. I'm still glad he spent up to 11 at the local state primary though - it gave him a lot and he was v. happy there.

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Well we've done this both ways round! All of mine started off in the local state village primary. DD (eldest) went to private secondary. She fitted in right away and did really well. She then went back to a state grammar school for 6th form which with hindsight wasn't a good plan.

DS2 moved into private primary to start Y3. He went from a class of 30 to one of 16, from mixed tables of activities and children encouraged to move about, to sitting in rows facing the blackboard (he has ADHD and instantly found this a better environment). We appreciated the fact that we could drop him off at 8.15 and pick him up at 6pm if we needed to, with the added benefit of occasional boarding! He used to beg to stay to boarder's tea!

Our private school offered specialist teachers for Y5 and Y6, but they really pushed them hard. In Y5 science they were expected to "take notes" in a lecture-style class.

He got to grammar school at 11 but ended up basically doing nothing for the whole of Y7 because he had already done it all at primary... this was a huge drawback. I did notice when we went around the high schools (I'm in Kent and we have selection at 11) that a lot of what the middle to lower sets were doing in Y10 he had already done in Y5.

As with most things in education I think it depends on the child and the school(s). But I would stress that neither of my children had any difficulty at all transferring from state to independent or from independent to state as far as "fitting in" went.

One of the issues with paying privately to get your child into a grammer school is that they will need an awful lot of coaching if they are average as my DS is currently which may put too much stress on him. Our local grammers are brilliant but you need to do really well in the exams to get in and then there is a lot of travelling plus if you have an average child they will need to do a lot of extra work to keep up, may lose their confidence etc, etc. Confidence and social skills are more important in jobs later in life. I would be concerned that my ds may grow up feeling an underdog and it will last a lifetime. Therefore I will not be pushing the extra private lessons etc as I would rather he finds his own level himself. I do of course do a lot of activities to him, reading, museums, cooking etc. If he becomes the next Jamie Oliver so be it but if he is good acadmecially that if fine as long as he does not feel too much stress at a young age.

Just thought I would throw this one out there kind of on this subject. I am told In Sweeden they do not send their children to school until they are 7 years old but they stay in education until they are 18 and then can go onto further education if they wish. Their GCSE or equivalent exam results are better than ours apparently and they have less teenagers 'burning out' and suffering from stress.