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

Haven't read all the thread. Apologies.

While private schools, grammar schools and church schools carry on 'creaming off' many of the brightest and most dynamic students, and where house prices dictate social intake to popular non-selective schools there is no such thing as 'comprehensive' education in the UK.

If comprehensives were genuinely comprehensive I'd be delighted for my dc's to go to these schools.

well enough.

That's just not true in my experience, Lequeen. And I have bright kids in the state system.

I am disappointed LeQueen-I have to disagree for once. A good comprehensive isn't like that. If there are no grammar schools (there are not in my area)they have all the high flyers and are quite capable of getting them to Oxbridge. My 3 DCs have all done wonderfully well at the local one and got exactly where they would have done had I paid or they had been to grammar school. They certainly haven't been fobbed off with 'good enough'-and neither have their friends.

Completely agree with you LeQueen

I was educated in the state sector, was identified as "bright" put up a year early - and after that, absolutely no support given.

I don't think that my DS doing chemistry at the university of his choice (a Russell group one) was fobbing him off and he wasn't in anyway unusual.

I agree with LeQueen.

And I also get very annoyed when teachers tell bright kids that they've done well when they get B grades. No, they haven't. They've done badly and they'll suffer less if you just tell them that instead of letting them get a shock later.

but when the bright kids get A grades, you lot just say that's because As are easy. Poor buggers can't win, can they?

Like exoticfruits I don't recognise the schools you are talking of.

The state secondary we are thinking of sending DS to is reknowned locally for it's work with g&t children. Last year they had more kids into Oxbridge than the private school we are looking at for DD!

As has been said continually on this thread, you simply cannot generalise, really, you can't.

Pissfarterleech - that is because you didn't go to one (like I did)

Our comp was HUGE. Middle of Devon, only one for miles and miles. Our 6th form was big. Lots of peole got 3 A's. And If you got a B that WAS good. Maybe not now, but then it was more than good enough. 3 B's was considered good enough for loads of top Uni's. Loads and loads of people went to top Uni's, from my school. Oxford. London Uni's like LSE. Birmingham for Languages. which used to be 'the' uni's of the time. If you worked hard at our school you were very much helped, encouraged and supported, unlike the picture than LeQueen experienced.
My only concern is that its not like that now. It may well be, not like that now. Our local secondary school is superb, top top school. So I just ASSUMED that my ds's would be o.k. there.

I don't understand - what is why?

I agree with Meteorite. I went to an ok school where you were laughed at/bullied for doing well. I did all right but nowhere near what I could have achieved and nowhere near what I achieved on my degree and professional qualifications.

I really really don't want that for my kids, so I will be paying for private secondary and possibly primary depending on the success or otherwise of a placing request (Scotland ).

Sorry I was referring to the schools you don't recognise - LeQueen could have been writing about the school I went to

Oblomov, yes my Secondary was like that too, back in the day. It was expected that the top sets headed for the top unis, and most of us did.
Throughout my working life and social life, I have known more state school people from Oxbridge and top old skool unis than I have private.

Doh! sorry stripedcat, yes get you now!

Schools that fail to progress their brightest pupils are soon visited by OFSTED and put into special measures. It is simply untrue that many state schools do this.

I wouldn't ever use private for a child without special needs, in fact mine go to a school currently in special measures, it won't be for long and their progress is excellent.

I dislike the hot housing in some private schools, dislike how they provide a refuge for inept teachers who couldn't cope in the state sector (not always obviously), dislike the social values they represent and note that state students do better at university.

You can't generalise about schools but you can have beliefs that keep you within one system or the other.

Returning to this thread an eon after I briefly posted, my reasons for choosing a private school have very little to do with bare results/academics (at this stage - DS is only in reception). His school goes up to Year 11 and is completely non selective. My reasons for choosing it are:

1. small class sizes (DS is hmmm, demanding, shall we say?) and small school
2. excellent facilities - acres upon acres of playing fields/banks of IT equipment/peripatetic teachers in most musical instruments
3. firm but "loving" discipline/proper uniform
4. flexible and affordable after school care on site

As an aside, all of those things mean (I think they are the cause of it anyway) that despite being non selective their GCSE results by far outstrip the local secondaries/comps (which are actually pretty good by comparison to national averages).

People are answering this as if it is all about academics, and it isn't.

What I am trying to say is that on MN it seems that the implication behind many posts that are anti private is that the academics may be no better and therefore it is a waste of money. DS may end up with exactly the same GCSE results he would have got at a local comp, but for me it still wouldn't be a waste of money.

Trixymilixy - can totally sympathise

Well that's the problem with the grammar school system, isn't it?

And I think in many ways you see what you want to see - probably applies to me too - but I've seen a lot of effort go into the kids who could get Cs but risk Ds, and also a lot of effort go into the kids who should get As but risk getting Bs.

Georgimama, that's exactly what Ive been trying to say. I'm fairly confident that my DCs will achieve pretty similar grades to what they would have done had we not paid.

Oh and I think LeQueen's post just goes to show that everyone is coming at this from their own experiences. My experience of good state schools is almost the opposite in that I often find them too pushy. Not just the ones I have taught in but the one I attended. I hated the streaming and the pushing and the expectation that I would do the most academic Alevels then head for an RG university to do something like law. It wasn't that I couldn't cope with it academically, rather that I found it narrow and blinkered. It's that narrowness I pay to avoid.

With respect to data on exam results / uni entry etc. already mentioned have been the Sutton Trust, OECD annual(?) report on education.

Any other sources of info out there?