Is there any long term advantage in going private primary onwards vs private secondary only?

[river1]

Hello,
Not wishing to have a state vs private debate here please as I know there are good/bad schools in each sector but would be very grateful for views from those who are going private already at primary or plan to at secondary (and particuarly those who have moved private mid primary)?

DD is in Yr1 at a 'good' small village school (with mixed year groups), is fairly happy there, but I think rather unispired. There is no major nightmare forcing me to move her but I feel pretty underwhelmed (best word for it) by the scope of the curriculum, facilities and general outlook. There are no other viable state options avail to us.

I was educated privately and if money was no object my daughter would be too. But it would involve sacrifice and some stress on jobs. My parents were not well off but they made the choices I suppose i would choose to make too.

I have little doubt that if I were to move DD to the private school locally that I like, she would leave further ahead and with more confidence and self assurance and exposure to a wider non sats based curriculum, with increased focus on art, music, drama, languages etc too.

My question is - will it make any difference to her in the long run if we make the move at Yr2 or if we wait til secondary? Would she be in the same place at 18 either way? May be impossible to answer I know but I would love to hear experiences and thoughts

ps there are no selective state schools near us so educating at prep school to aim for grammer is not an option.
thank you

the thing is happygardening, how do you know if the ethos would fit the child? Maybe I am rubbish parent but I don't feel I am able to predict that in advance, but only once my child is going through and I often find myself surprised at what I could never have predicted the outcome to be!

I'd be thinking about the secondaries, as others have posted. If you have a good choice, state and private, and you reckon she would get into the private, why make the sacrifice now, instead put a bit more funding into stretching her outside school?

If you think the private are super competitive, then you may need to bite the bullet early.

To reiterate the "don't assume that private is good" theme, we moved DS from a state school because they couldn't get to grips with his rare illness to a prep school where frankly the academic side was poor and complacent. He was happier which was the most important thing at the time but they also failed to spot his dyslexia. So really be clear what it is you want out of this. And having had parents likewise who sacrificed a lot for my education, it does place stress on both parent and child.

I don't know how you know if the ethos will fit the child and it also has to fit your ethos for that child and yourself as well. I wish there was any easy way of finding out. Firstly you have to work out what the ethos is; an almost impossible task. You can go on their open days, listen to other parents/ children, read their websites etc but at the top end most independent schools are slick marketing machines with almost identical facilities. You only have to look on MM to see completely different views of school some brought about by gossip and rumour others from personal experience. We have friends who have moved there children 2 - 3 times each time hoping that "this school is the right place."
The bottom line is that most independent schools are results driven what ever they might claim; read the posting about the head of Wellington on the senior schools section. They are going to push your child to "do well." Is it easier to push the top 1% rather than Tim nice but dim? Does the former respond better to high expectations? Or maybe girls do? I don't know the answer to these questions.
All independent schools will offer more activities/clubs/sports/cultural pursuits that their state counterparts but most not at the expense of academic pressure. These extras are an add on not an alternative to lessons. My DS2 has to do a sporting activity every day and attend lessons sometimes till after 1800 5 1/2 days a week, do 2 hours of prep 6 nights a week, train for inter house competitions, rehearse for house drama and he is expected to get A*'s in all public exams and live in a highly competitive environment. It works for him but it isn't right for many. But I only know what really goes on because after much deliberation we took the jump into the unknown with our fingers crossed.

My DC are at a state primary.

They learn French and Spanish.
They have an orchestra and a choir and are singing at the Albert Hall next year.
There is an outdoor swimming pool on site and they swim in it from April-October.
They have top notch Art and Chess tutors who come in.
You can book to learn absolutely any instrument you like and a teacher is found (at a charge!) by the county council and comes to school.
We have a superb full time music teacher and music studio.
We have playing fields, a vegetable garden, trim trail, sand pits, long jump, even a large, landscaped pond where they do nature studies.

I know not all state primaries are this stunning and well appointed. It is certainly one reason we put our children in there and have kept them there.
What the school doesn't have, and has no interest in developing, is any desire to push children to reach their absolute potential. As long as they coast along, meeting Nat Av targets, that's fine by our happy, laid back school.

This means it's quite nerve wracking preparing them for selective secondary as many of the basics just haven't been instilled. But because of all the add-ons, they are very well rounded, inquisitive children, not little hot-housed, spoon fed creatures. Every school is different. I'd say, if money isn't a problem, take a good look at each school, ignoring what the cost is and ask yourself what the strengths and weaknesses are, and most important of all - what your DCs essential requirements are.

Should add - if they are at state primary then you do have to prepare them for entrance exams yourself /with a tutor. I've done it twice, it's no big deal.

Its much harder to prepare children for CE in a state primary you also have to find somewhere for yrs 7 and 8.
The languages in particular are not taught to the same level. Most children in prep schools being prepared for CE will start French in yr2/3 and have 4-5 lessons a week. Those doing Latin will start in yr 4 and have a similar number. I understand that if they start French in yr 7 unless particularly gifted are going to struggle to catch up. Also if you think your children might be scholarship potential at yr 9 then you need, as a general principle, to be in a school that prepares children for scholarships by yrs 4/5.

I have a friend who is Head of year 7 in a very high achieving State Grammar. She says the difference between state and private year 7s is that the privately educated ones know a lot more, but the state educated ones know how to find things out.

Sounds a bit of a generalization to me and a bit of independent ed. bashing (yawn). DS2 (indpendently educated from 7 yr old) can find things out and discuss things.

Well, Ds1 went to a selective independent from state primary in Y7 and there's certainly no indication (now Y9) that he's any better at finding stuff out than his previously privately educated classmates. In fact, if anything, he seems rather less equipped for the rigours of his current school. But people seem to buy into the spoonfed, lacking in initiative stuff. From personal experience (my own and wider family) it's tosh.

Wasn't intended to bash anyone. Should have put "generally" in there. The question I asked was something like."Broadly, what's the most noticeable difference difference between kids from independent and state primaries in year 7 at this selective school which has about a 60:40 state:independent intake?"

Maybe she is just in the wrong state primary. A 'good' school can just be coasting. It is very possible to get good results, but be uninspiring and boring.

My DDs were in a state primary until the eldest was in Y6. In that year DD1 did nothing but SATs practice. We even had a parents' meeting in the October of Y6 to tell us this. She had already reached level 5a early on in Y5, so made no advancement in almost two years of schooling.

When she got to her independent senior school, it was very evident how lacking her education at primary had been, although her maths and English was good. Her science involved reciting 'fair test' at every opportunity.

The sad thing was that I was quite pleased with this primary school. Thought it was 'fine'. They did all the things others have mentioned - French club (with the TA), some after school babysitting clubs, paid for sports.

Needless to say, I whipped my other two out and they were in independent the next term. The contrast was unbelievable.

seeker I suspect that your friend has this problem because some preps are very good at doing is getting "unsuitable" canditates into selective schools be they grammar or indpendent. To do this they probably have spoon fed the less able. I used to live in a county with a huge number of grammars and these prep schools were called "crammers for the grammars."

She didn't say it was a problem- it was just an observation. In response to my question.

And there are loads of coached to the max state school children in this area too!

MTG,

My son is currently in Year 6.

His SATs practice so far has involved:
1 paper per day for a week in the second week of the first term and..
1 maths paper done in the normal maths lesson in the week after half term and...
errr that's it.

He's a high Level 5 in Maths, so has extension maths lessons with a secondary school teacher for half a day every fortnight, and every few weeks they have a whole week when the year group as a whole is divided so that those working towards level 6 get separate maths lessons from the rest.

Meanwhile he has..

• Been involved in a 'takeover' day when the Year 6s took on the roles of adults in the school. He taught a Year 5 Maths lesson - had to submit plans, prepare a Powerpoint and all his own resources etc.
• Been trained as a Playleader
• Had a school trip, studied a Shakespeare play and seen it performed by a company that came into school and taken part in a scene from it, and had a Tudor day led by the local museum
• Captained the school football team and written match reports for the school newsletter.
• Played his clarinet in a jazz band every week and had a professional ensemble in to work with the children to develop their music
• Weekly French lessons (standard for every year from year 3) with a native speaker

etc etc etc. Can't really be bothered to specify the rest.

I agree that SOME schools will devote a year to SATs practice - in the same way that the local private primaries devote a year or more to preparing for the 11+. However, to condemn an entire sector on the basis of what some schools do is just silly.

That might be the case, but it doesn't make my daughter's experience any better. And I am still glad I got my other two out when they were still young enough to enjoy learning.

I am quite willing to concede that in some state schools, the breadth of education and opportunities available to the children isn't that great. This is DS's second state primary - he left the first one in the middle of Year 1 as an extremely anxious, bullied child and a selective mute.

On the other hand, it is not true that all private schools are better than all state primaries in terms of opportunity. Because of DS's experience, I researched a LOT of the local schools before we moved here. Some of the private primaries did offer good opportunities. Others were essentially 11+ coaching factories, extremely formal and very limited in their outlook.

It's a discussion that cannot be dealt with at the general level of one sector against another - it has to be a comparison of one school against another, and which takes account of everything about the school (how well it deals with SEN, for example, as DS was at the time he moved presenting as a child with significant SEN, how it manages 'difference' in all its forms by seeing the totality of a child etc etc) rather than saying 'private is better at this than state'.

And of course you were right to get your other children out of that particular school. Whether the transition could equally well have been to a better state school with a more balanced outlook and less of a SATs factory is 'a road not travelled' so neither you nor I can possibly evaluate it.

The sad thing is that I thought, for several years, that that school was fine/good - just like hundreds of mumsnetters who brag about their state schools. And as a teacher myself, I should know better.

I am always interested that if people have a crap experience with a state school it's always because all state schools are crap. Whereas if they have a crap experience with an independent it's because it was the wrong school for that particular child.

I think that it is more that people won't admit they have a crap experience at a fee paying school. You get people complaining on here and you think 'and you are paying for that-WHY!' (e.g someone last week who has a DS held back in maths because the teacher wouldn't differentiate the work and she had only 7 DCs! -and they are paying.

Seeker, I couldn't have put it better myself.

MtG, you only know about that particular school. You have never been in my DC's school, nor the private alternatives to it, so you cannot judge them. I have, and so I am in a position to do so.

Is it just possible that you had an unfortunate experience - I did too, with DS's first school - but it was simply not a very good school and that other MN people who very much like their children's schools might be speaking about better ones??

(Adds apropos of MtG's posting on other threads that I'm not entirely certain that she and I would see eye to eye about what we thought to be a good school anyway.... )

Exotic, exactly. To borrow MtG's words, I often see private school parents on here 'bragging' about their children' schools and think 'but we get much better education than that FOR FREE'...

dc1 joined went frrom prim state to private sec. Has no problems academically. State primary might not have had expensive trips to wherever but did some nice local residential trip that everyone enjoyed.