Parents from private schools

[freakazoidroid]

We are considering private school for our dd. She is already at the nursery of the school we like and is due to start in reception in sept.
What I am worried about is the community of a private school. If she went to our local primary it would be more like that.
Can anyone please say what their experiences are? Have you made good friends with other parents and socialise with them?
Also we are not loaded and do not have a massive house and lots of nice holidays. In fact holidays would not occur much if we go private.
Will this hinder my dd at school as she gets older with her friends, will they pick on her for not having the lifestyle?
Thanks!

Loads of state schools have a very narrow range of family backgrounds - it is hardly the preserve of private schools!

Not read the whole thread, only first few pages. DD1 is at a small private school in the nursery, after attending several community nurseries / playgroups that didn't go well. She is v happy there and have been impressed by the things they do with the children and by the teachers, so are considering for reception/primary.

I find many of the parents unfriendly, as does our childminder who often does pick-ups. No-one says hello to her! Some parents are friendly to me, but don't want to make friends IYSWIM, which is fine; some I never see 'cos they work full-time; some only seem to talk to people they already know or people with whom their DC is friends (little groups of mums with backs turned kind of thing); some are downright rude and won't even say hello or return a smile. Lots of Chelsea tractors, parked inconsiderately etc.

Some people seem to have lots of money (glam holidays, don't work, swanky clothes, huge houses); others less so (e.g. several of the parents of DC in DD's class are teachers and nurses). Reckon about two-thirds of the families in DD1's class have two working parents (school has wraparound care etc). Obviously no-one is on a low income.

DD1 likes it but hasn't made a proper friend yet. Has only had one "play date", the mum was clearly wanting her DS to make a friend, when he and DD didn't get on she never spoke to me again! And a couple of birthday parties.

One of the (Ofsted outstanding, tiny catchment, posh area) local state schools seems to be similar, and a good friend of mine who lives in a swish part of Cheshire reports that her son's state school is the same. So not sure if playground politics, or whether wealth makes things unpleasant!

I said there wouldn't be any super rich families at a Hackney comp. Yes, many well off families use state education but I would hazard a guess that the number of super rich families doing so are vanishingly small if any.

"The poor cannot choose private education. "

Yes they can. DSs school charges a minimum annual fee of £200.

Paul McCartney's children went to state comps.
Not in Hackney, but where he lives. He is super rich, isn't he?

Well, that would have been somewhere nice and genteel. I bet he would not have sent them to state school in some of the rougher inner London boroughs. I wonder what school the littlest one goes to.

Besides, surely we are allowed to ignore that one case in the same way as we have to ignore the examples of poor families using private education? Posters keep telling me those families don't exist when I know that they do [shrug].

East Sussex. Hardly an inner city riddled with poverty.

There's a massive difference between the comprehensive school I went to in Berkshire and the ones I could choose for my children in inner London where I live. It's much much harder to get your children into a good state secondary here than it is to get them into an independent school. The parents who manage to get their kids into the sought-after state secondaries tend to have had a game plan from very early on, involving location of home/attendance at church/massive encouragement of extracurricular activity etc, or some combination of the above. Not sure Paul McCartney would have made the same decision if he'd looked round our local comp!

A friend went to visit a local comprehensive and decided not to apply as it was too posh and she felt that her children would not fit in.

It's all very well saying that poor children can't go to private schools but they actually have a better chance of getting into a private school than some comps where you have to pay a fortune to live in the catchment!

Completely agree Caoimhe. IMO people who are judgmental about those who use private schools are hypocritical if they live next door to or have moved house to get into a "good" state school. The latter is paying for education indirectly, but, assuming property prices don't fall, keeping the cash.

Under the current system, the "best" option for people with limited financial means is probably to attend church to get a place, or rent in a tiny place within catchment of popular school.

I personally would rather pay for education than pretend to find God, and am v lucky to have the choice.

LOL - I'm just browsing stuff about the McCartneys. Looking at an old article where Stella says her experiences in state education lead her to want to put her child(ren) into a private school.

1. As someone's said, poor = no car at all
2. Those who get full scholarships will be the teeny-weeny cohort of brightest-and-best-with-clued-up-probably-middle-class-parents. Using the existence of this cohort to insist that the average poor child can access private education is disingenuosityness to the power of arse.
3. LOL that this thread is about the relative sneeriness of parents with children at independent school. You can barely move round here for exaggeratedly-raised eyebrows and Linda Snell voices.

I don't have a car, it doesn't mean I'm poor though (some people are far worse off then me).

Lindsay Who is Linda Snell? (My DS clearly attends the wrong sort of independent school!).

The two boys in his class who have scholarships also have bursaries, their parents are not well off at all, average wage normal working people.

I agree, an "average" poor child probably can't attend a public school. They wouldn't be able to attend a grammar either, but that is due to be being "average", not poor!

I live in inner city London, not Hackney as it happens, but a similiar area, riddled with poverty, and my child will go to the local comp.
Which, actually, is pretty good. Very good. I have nothing to complain about.
But please, all this expression as to how awful the prospects of children living 'riddled in poverty' and how anyone would do all they could to escape the horror of schools in such areas really can sound very patronising to those of us who live there.
You choose private to get away from our kids, who make these schools something other than genteel?
Have you looked at state education in Hackney recently? Mossbourne has even been in the colour supplements, you know. I know lawyers, accountants, barristers and doctors who send their children to different state schools in Hackney. Amidst the 'rough' kids, from poor homes.

Bully for them, dunrovin.

Last time I checked, we still lived in a free country, and can spend our hard-earned cash any way we like.

I don't need to be told by you or anyone else here how to do that. I would never dream of doing that to you.

You have the luxury of a state comp wich is 'very good.' The school ds was allocated was 'aiming for 24% GCSE pass rate' last year. Not every child has access to a very good state school. I'm with amerryscot, people wouldn't dream of telling someone else where they should buy a house, what makes where they educate their children excempt from manners?

I cannot afford to run a car. I cannot afford private education. I am not struggling for every mouthful or on the breadline, I am lucky that state education in our area is good, and that living in London I have no need of a car.

I am not against private education, or the choice to take advantage of it by those who take it. But I am sick of being presumed to be the people that some private educators wish to avoid, or the attitude that I am forced to endure some godawful education for my children that anyone with a bean to their name would avoid at all costs. I am tired with hearing how easily affordable independent schools are if only one will drop the Porsche in favour of a beat up volvo ("the horror!").

Where, merryscot, did I tell you how to make YOUR choices?

Anyway, no matter, I have had enough - the whole argument is pointless.

Lindsay - see the comedy in a "relative sneeriness" thread, but there are many ridiculous issues debated on MN!

I doubt Linda Snell would be interested in education mind you.

Where you educate your children affects the choices available to other families in a way that where you buy a house does not. Parental choice has a massive impact on education within a particular area so I think it is OK to debate those choices. I don't think it's about manners.

"You choose private to get away from our kids," no i didn't your kids are welcome as far as I'm concerned. I choose private ed. because it works for my DS and I'm lucky enough to have the money to afford it.
Secondly independent ed. (I'm talking senior boarding) is not "easily affordable" if you drop the Porche you would need to do more than that to stump up £31 000 PA for five years but there are bursaries available not to all because ultimately thats not possible anymore than its possible for all children in your borough Dunrovin to attend your DC's school but they are there and some are very large.

Of course I haven't looked at the state education in Hackney. I don't live there. Anyway, I didn't bring Hackney up, someone else did, appearing to use it as the antithesis of a private school. The issue isn't where a school is but how good it is. If the local school had been utterly crap, you can guarantee the McCartneys would not have gone there.

Anyway, I love the way people are able to know the details of how stuff works in every school in the private sector and state things as universal truth. It's truly incredible.

No doubt there are people who would be unable to afford the £3.87 per week it would cost to send their child to one of the local private schools here.

"Where you educate your children affects the choices available to other families in a way that where you buy a house does not"

In many ways, yes it does.

The local good comprehensive is very over subscribed. It is one of the only good comps with no religious entry requirement and thus is popular. DS1 did gain a place there but he also gained a very good academic scholarship to a private school. We chose the private one. Immediately, one child got a place at the school their parents wanted, ending weeks of worry - I saw this in a very real way as friends were checking their position on the waiting list constantly. These are children whose allocated school was a failing one with poor results. At least one child never got their place.

Of course, this is not why we chose private and I would never claim that. We chose for our son's benefit not that of others. Nevertheless, the result for another child was great - the difference between a crap school and a very good one.