Private Primary School Question

[CaptainMartinCrieff]

My DS is only 17 months so I'm jumping the gun a bit, but I've had a browse of private schools (on the Internet) in my area and there are loads of schools but they only take boys until either 7 years old or 11 years old and then become girls schools. There is nowhere near for the boys to move to from what I can gather. Does/have anyone send/sent there DS to one of these types of schools? Did they feel their DS's needs were met? Or did they feel their DS was there to boost the income of a girl's school?

I haven't but I would arrange a visit and ask how many boys they have and more importantly ask where the boys go to afterwards. Why private? Have you looked at state schools? If there are no private schools for boys then it implies the state schools are good.

The state schools appear to be pretty good as well, the two in our catchment area get Outstanding and Good OFSTED reports. The reason I've been thinking about private is that the secondary schools are not so good and we'd probably consider private at that stage but don't want to be penalised for having not gone to private primary school.
But having said that if there are no private secondary schools around here anyway?!
It's very, very early days so this is more out of curiosity than anything else, it's just so odd that they all stop at 7 or 11 years old if you're a boy?

It is quite common to have them take younger boys-all down to finances I would imagine.
I would go for state primary in your case. You won't get penalised, it is never a case of 'either or' (despite MN trying to make it so). People use both at different times or they have one DC state and one private. Many people do state primary, private secondary and many people pay for primary to get into a selective state school. Some start state secondary and then move, many move either way for 6th form.Some do state infants, private junior.
You really need to vistit the school and find one that suits your DC, regardless of state/private.
Since you have no private secondary schools around you have nothing to lose anyway.

I would certainly be very cautious about sending a boy to a predominantly girls school. But I agree that it is utterly unusual to have private girls schools in a locality without the equivalent boys school, and can only conclude that either all the boys would tend to board, or that you haven't found the boys only school yet. I would phone a couple of the schools and find where their boys end up. Most families would be unwilling to send their dd to private schools unless their sons were also in the private sector. Or you can post your general locality and we'll let you know what the options are!

Whilst many children from private primaries end up at independent secondaries, the correlation is not true and many independents will have half or more of their intake from state primary schools.

In this area there are no all boys schools, and several all girls schools - the majority are coed. Apparently many families want their dds in single sex education, but its not so much of an issue for boys

I think the girls schools often taske little boys as otherwise it is a logistical problem for families with boys and girls to drop off/pick up