If you could afford to send your kids to a private school, would you?

[juicychops]

or would you choose for them to go to a 'normal' state school?

just curious what your responses will be

I've seen "good comprehensives" mentioned often on MN. Fine if you live in an affluent area which is more likely to have one of these. But what about if you're intelligent but live in a poorer area which may well have a lower-achieving comp? This is where I think grammars really work well. The only argument I've really hard against them is that a few children on the borderline are more likely to get in if they are "coached" by pushy parents, but surely the 11+ could be replaced by something more up-to-date?

Why do you think the lottery system is unfair? Because if you've got yourself a house in a 'nice' area, you should be allowed a place at a 'nice' school?

Yes of course. It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise. With a lottery you will get people who live opposite a school having to commute, or siblings being allocated different schools. Both absurd.

lollington - my dc's got their school places through the lottery system. LA's don't use 'full' lotteries - they use partial ones. So those living nearest to school get in, and those for whom it is not nearest school get put into a lottery.

Which at least gives those of us who can't afford to move a bit more of a chance

Comprehensives will never have a truly "mixed demographic" while a percentage still go to private school.

Funny how all the people anti-private school are also desperately looking for ways to get their kids out of lower achieving schools in poor areas (grammars, lottery systems). I thought it was laudable for your children to mix with these low achievers?

Lottery system could mean you are travelling miles and miles to your nearest school, especially if you live in a rural area. Fine if there is school transport, but a nightmare if the children have to take a number of public buses or parents have to drive them (not very environmentally friendly!).

There is still something to be said for children being schooled in their own communities, that is certainly one of the best points of my children being at their local school!

Hmm. But I'm not talking about a cross-county lottery. What I would do is band schools together into groups of say, four. Based on where I live, although you could tweak in different places, you could easily have four schools within easy reach - the problem is that at the moment you will tend to get one which is massively favoured, two which are considered OK, and one which everyone avoids. So that would break down the concentration of FSM at one school, or empty desks, or over-subscription at another with people buying cheap flats and using fake addresses to secure a place.

It's definitely an imperfect system, but it's what I'd put in place of the perhaps even more imperfect system we have now!

Hmm. In the county I live in there is ONE comprehensive nearby. There is another a 35 minute drive away.

But lollington I am suggesting that for exactly the opposite reason - so that you won't get middle class ghettoes and schools that no-one wants to go to! And then there wouldn't be state schools which are socially divisive in the ways they have been accused of being on this thread.

I certainly don't want my children whisked off to grammar, either! If we had the 11+ I don't deny it would pose me a difficult problem to decide on, but I'm very glad we do not. The catchment system has served me fine, and we live in a (very) mixed area.

But I know there are many less happy, who don't feel the catchment system is fair where they live, and that would be what I'd suggest to counter that.

lovetheharp that's a good point - I'm only musing really and I admit I am thinking more about cities, where the catchment system gets so very fraught and causes problems. It seems to me that we less often hear people complain about places for dc at rural comps.

ElaineReese, you're right, I think it could work really well in urban areas but not so in rural areas. Maybe a split system could work?

Pure speculation of course, as it will never happen!!!

It's all dependent on so many factors.

Some people make enormous sacrifices to privately educate their children. They live in a smaller house, go without nice holidays and pricey extra curricular activities. Many do so because they believe that the education they are buying is worth it and in areas with poor state schools the balance is often well struck.

But where do you draw the line? At what point is the sacrifice not worth it?

Genevieve, that may well be the case in the school close to you. I know full well that many private schools across the country are nothing more than snobby, elitist institutions. But I'd never chose a school like that for my kids. We chose a thriving, vibrant school where conduct was far more important than tradition and protocol. No stuffy, impractical uniform, no silly hats, no outdated practices at all really. Just an excellent, high achieving school with excellent teachers and facilities who are just as interested in art and drama as in Maths and English and where my children got off to the best possible start I could have hoped for.

So I'm not naive enough to suggest this is the case across the private sector, nor would I always choose private over state. I simply chose an excellent, rounded education over a narrow academic one.

We are in a grammar school area. Nearest grammar is in the top 10 and competition is fierce. Its also in a deprived area. It has a wide social mix, though, much much more so than the local independents, which as far as I can tell are stuffed with the children who didn't get into the grammars whose parents can afford to pay. A much less varied mix of people.

This is a great thread... Lots of talking and no listening! All of us have our beliefs and experiences and I suspect a fair few poster are using a liberal amount of artistic license to illustrate their views! There are good and bad schools in both sectors. We happen to be educating privately because in brief I have achieved some success with my (private) education and my husband has achieved his success inspite of his (state) education. I recognise we were both educated a few years ago and things have changed in both sectors! He just slipped through the net, struggles still with reading as he wasn't diagnosed as dyslexic until 24, let school with no qualifications and is just sooo bright. His school (and father) failed him.
I think the best academic rated private schools are incredidly diverse (culturally and socially) and this idea of elitism and snobbery simply does not exist. These schools value intellect above all else. Perhaps there are still those where social snobbery prevades but I doubt very much they have long waiting lists!
To all those not in a million years posters. Here is my issue with the state system. The best schools, that I suspect alot of your kids attend, are not really available to everyone are they. Where I live you have to be living in a very expensive house. Then there are the grammar schools the home of the middle classes! In my experience (Tiffins etc) no matter how bright your child is you have to have a clued up (read pushy) parent to help (I hear the tutor waiting lists are long!). So where is the egalitarianism in that. This is not a fair and just `free for all' education. I suspect if many of you lived in inner city areas and experienced some of the shocking secondary schools out there you wouldn't be so holier than thou.

You're right it will never happen - I guess I just see kids bussing across town anyway, and I see that the school down the road which is only a bit further away from ours is not full, whilst others are full to bursting, and people move in year 6 away from some schools and towards others, and I think there has to be a better way!

And another thing I do wonder about it, if you are scraping together the pennies every month to pay the fees, how does that impact your child? I wonder what it would do to a child to be out of sync with the majority, to be the poor kid in the class?
I'm just musing.

Fair point, blueyonder, but for every inner city comp thats failing and every Bodenstuffed grammar school, there are also areas of the country with state schools somewhere in between, where its not all as black and white.

I would not send my privately educated, exceptionally bright DD1 to a grammar school in a million years!

lollington the point about preferring grammars to private education is that grammars are about achievement regardless of money.

blueyonder bang on there.

I can tell you straight that if the local village primary wasn't up to scratch. my lot would be in private sharpish.

Lucky you to have the choice of private then lovingthecoast

I know a few people in that situation, pissfarterleech, and once it gets so they don't want to invite friends back on playdates, they have moved them.

@blueyonder 'these schools value intellect above all else'.

Except hard cash, that is.

I wouldn't say my child was at one of the 'best' schools, though I am happy with it (by and large. I have beefs sometimes, and I email and contact and I think that's right and proper - it's a two-way process). But no way is it a school where you need to live in an expensive house to get in!