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!

and some DCs offer Physics, Latin and History along with Drama and Theatre Studies, there's no accounting for taste and abilities...

3 academic a levels and a well rounded individual is is fine for Oxbridge. You don't necessarily score more for 4. You might at other universities.

Eton offers DT a level, by the way!

I live in an area with lots of good and better state schools, also some extremely selective private schools (and for girls some less selective ones). I would say kids at the private schools travel further on average to get to school. Also some parents are prejudiced against state schools (like some on MN). Some though whose kids travel to the private schools would love to have the option of the State schools (but then some of it is choosing to pay via house prices or school fees). The very poorest can access the state schools (council and social housing), but even with a full scholarship it is much harder to access the private ones (extras cost a lot more).

Waves to OP from her hijacked thread.

Seeker- It is much better to just sit 3 academic A levels. Yr daughter will not be penalised for not having sat a 4th. Bu they can't unsee what is presented before them. It's a bit like sitting 15 GCSEs and scoring a in 5 subjects, A in 5 subjects, and B in 5 subjects. It would be much better as far as some Oxford applications are concerned to sit 8 and score 5 A and 3 a grades. Because at some colleges, for some subjects, your GCSEs A haul is valued as a percentage, Medicine (at quite afew Ox colleges) for example is scored like that. You need to have done less well in the BMAT the higher the % of A at GCSE in order to secure an interview.

Things haven't changed in schools over the past 20 years. There's still disruptive children in classes. Discipline has decreased if anything. Ds did spend time in a state school, a term and a half before I pulled him out. He was bored and being physically bullied on a daily basis. The head refused to accept that it was happening as 'all of the children here come from good families.' I'm hardly going to move him in and out of schools trying to find the best one for him and he's OK where he is.

Seeker - At Eton they take 3 full A levels so you can bet your bottom dollar there were very specific reasons for the 4 lads who sat DT a level. Oh and Oxbridge aren't interested in well rounded ness. Thy're only interested in people are really devoted/passionate/insert cliche about their subject. Really.

I didn't say there were no disruptive children in classes. But 20 years ago there was no G&T programme, SATS levels weren't given consistently throughout so that you could see progress (one teacher's 'good effort - A' on a report is a bit meaningless when you don't know what that means in terms of prediction, whether it's objective, whether it refers to effort or is just relative to the child's performance last term etc), and most schools didn't have consistent codes of conduct and sanctions for bad behaviour.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's improved vastly.

And at Tiffin girls there were only 11 girls last year who sat Theatre Studies out of a cohort of 145.

Well, obviously for someone aiming at a Russell group university, theatre studies- or any other non hard academic subject would be a 4th a level. I was taking that as read!

I currently know children who are bored and bullied at a top independent, a grammar, a high school, a prep school and a state primary. Qnot sure that proves anything

There's no active G&T programmes in some state schools. Bullying happens at every school, the difference is how the teachers deal with it. My son was accused of lying because he told me when I collected him from school rather then the teacher whom he knew for two weeks. I was in the room when the head teacher said this. He is working years ahead of where he should be, he is in a small class so isn't lost and has teachers who know him and are passionate about their subjects. There's extra curricular activities every day and he's able to study subjects which he wouldn't have knowledge of otherwise. I'm not going to pretend to follow a certain faith so he can be educated there and he's not taking the place of another child in a popular state school because I have enough cash to move into the catchment. There's far too many threads/posts which bash a parent's decision to send their child to a private school which I find disgusting.

So they deal with bullying better in private schools? Is that what you are saying?

They deal with it, full stop.

And they deal with damaged children, bullied in the state sector.

I see. Thanks.

In some they do Elaine. It's rather when the first question you ask when you're shown around is what the bullying policy is though. If all schools had a zero tolerance to it then the lives of a lot of children would be far better.

Elaine, without wishing to be argumentative I think you are choosing to peruse an line that gives no credit to anyone who choses private.

Yes, I would absolutely concede that there are arses who would chose private because they wish the social status that they perceive attaches to that. I have no truck with that.

But the sarcastic comment you made earlier about pitying those poor children who need only 9 to a class, and all the other things you picked upon, illustrates how you view everyone viewing and experiencing this differently to you in a determinedly unpleasant way. What is to be sneered at about a child who does need a very small classroom. Why should those children be pitied - by which you didn't actually mean pity in an empathetic way, you meant to sugget contempt didn't you.
My middle son needs 6 in a class as he has special needs. Aged 8 his brother, who has no such issues, needed a small classroom as he was having huge trouble at home with a high needs highly disruptive sibling and a depressed mother. He did well in a small highly pastoral environment. I don't see why that is shameful or awful.

Picking on the tiny proportion of determinedly private parents as a stick with which to beat every private school parent is as dim witted as the private school parents who smear every state school as substandard. It is a pretty childish race to the lowest common denominator argument.

Personally I think bullying policy is dependent upon the individual school - very little to do with what sector.
But that is only my experience.

It's a lot to do with the school Pagwatch. There's far more to choosing a school then the anti-bullying policy though. Class sizes are important, variety of subjects and extra curricular activities is another. Some posters clearly have issues surrounding private schools. It's quite sad to see as, ultimately, we all want the best for our children. There's far more threads slating private education then there are slating private healthcare for example.

The comment about pitying those children was in the context of the argument that amerryscot's post was unpleasant, though. Surely the intention there is clear?

It is also not I who have made a generalisation about bullying here - I am responding to the post claiming that private schools deal with it 'full stop', which I think is sweeping and naive.

Although your response above does prove that it is offensive to make insincere pseudo-pitying comments about other peoples' children!

Who's said that Elaine? As already stated, bullying happens in all schools. It's how the school deal with it that makes the difference. It seems to me as though you just want to argue.

Huh? Why are you picking on me again?

(hands amerryscot a glass of )