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!

If you judge people solely on their ability to pay school fees seeker then, yes, private school parents are not a diverse bunch.

Private school parents are very quick to talk about the diversity in their schools. Race and religion, yes. Class and money, no. And it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Seeker are you really trying to tell me, without actually knowing which private school my child is at, that there is no diversity there?

Because I beg to differ. There is more class and monetary diversity at my older child's private school than there is at the local state school. and I can say that with absolute certainty.

On the subject of diversity, I'd say that there is a tendency to well off families at private schools but that's where the similarity stops. It's naive to think that because you are better off, you share the same views, outlooks, lifestyle etc as other better off people And I'm sure some of the parents at DS's private school would be horrified to think I was the same class as them!

But it wasn't me who derailed the thread! How come the person who did, the incredible vanishing poster, isn't getting her share of the opprobrium?

So it doesn't actually matter who did it- it's my fault? Even though the other person wrote a long post detailing my family circumstances without checking whether it was ok with me first?

Presumably they relayed information that you had publicly posted.

If it were someone who knew you in real life, then that is not on.

There you go again Seeker! Making out that everyone on the thread (well, the private school parents obviously) read the Daily Mail. How can that comment not be rude?

Why can't you just leave it alone?

And for the sake of fairness the other rude people have been Elaine somebody or other and her nasty sneery comments and amerryscot (?) for going on about your ds.

seeker - Lots of people who had a rough start in life opt to send their children to private schools. Many of them realise how important it is precisely because they had to do things the hard and long way, night school, going off to university as adults etc. But you wouldn't know they had working class backgrounds unless they told you. Some of them even sing in choirs and ride horses. Oooooo eerrrrr missus.

Your posts are often caustic and didactic. But at least we now know you want us all to do as you say, not as you do. I'm interested in the fact that you used the word stramash. I use that word a lot. Are you Scots?

And I can't believe this thread is still going. I made Josceline Dimbleby's orange pastry mince pies today and they're heavenly. They have a blob of cream cheese inside them which makes them beautifully rich. I'll post the recipe if anyone's interested.

Yes please MrsJ !

Indulgent mince pies with orange pastry

Makes about 24.

Ingredients

For the pastry
500g strong plain white flour
175g icing or caster sugar
375g butter
the finely grated rind and juice of 1 large orange

For the pie filling
250g cream cheese or mascarpone
25g golden caster sugar
500-625g good quality mincemeat
the grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
milk to glaze
caster sugar

Make the pastry first. Sift the flour and sugar into a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces, stir these into the flour and rub lightly with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the orange rind. Using a knife, stir in the orange juice until the dough just begins to stick together. Gather up the dough into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.

Put the cream cheese and caster sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth. Knead the pastry lightly and roll out about three quarters fairly thickly. Using a 7.5cm diameter pastry cutter cut out 24 rounds, re-rolling the pastry as necessary. Butter two sheets of patty tins and line them with the pastry rounds. Spoon the mincemeat into a bowl and stir in the lemon rind and juice. Fill the lined patty tins to about half their depth with mincemeat, then put a teaspoonful of the cream cheese mixture on top and spread level. Roll out the remaining pastry and using a star-shaped pastry cutter cut out 24 stars. Place the stars on top of each mince pie. Pre-heat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7.

Brush the tops of the pies with a little milk and bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20 minutes until light golden-brown. Let the pies cool down before easing them from the tins gently with a round-bladed knife. Serve warm (they can be reheated), or at room temperature. Before serving, sprinkle with caster or icing sugar.

Most if not all private schools offer means tested bursaries on a sliding scale. At Manchester Grammar 250 boys receive a full or part bursary. To get full fees remission you would need to be on a combined earned or unearned gross income of £18,500. Therefore I dispute the idea that there are no poor children at private schools.

Seeker, I wonder what you are trying to achieve here.

At some point on this thread I changed "none" to "a vanishingly small number" I stand by that.

What am I trying to achieve? Nothing. Oh, except to defend myself from a series of deeply unpleasant personal attacks.

Seeker 250 children receiving bursaries at MGS is not 'a vanishingly small number'. There will also be a significant number of children whose parents are not eligible for bursaries but are not well off either.

Owing to bursaries, I think there's evidence that some private schools are actually more diverse than some of the top performing state schools esp grammars which have very unrepresentative numbers of children on FSM.

There are also different cultural attitudes to education also whereby a poor Chinese family for example may invest all the money they do have into helping their children access bursaries at a top performing school whereas a different family might make other choices for example having a SAHP while making the assumption that they cannot afford private education.

The old fee paying grammar schools have mo full bursaries than most. The two prestigious independents near us have no full bursaries.

And I agree about diversity in state grammar schools.

I am surprised that any independent school does not offer any full bursary. Care to name them? I've just had a quick browse around some schools and it looks like 20% of pupils on bursaries on a sliding scale is not atypical. The children on a full bursary at independent schools will be amongst the poorest and the brightest (and/or with the pushiest parents) in the country.

It is simply not true to say that there are no or even a 'vanishingly small' number of poor children at private schools.

I have a feeling that only childre will be over represented at private schools also.

But bursaries are often only 20% or something like that. The numberof bursaries does not indicate the presence of poor children. Just usually slightly less rich ones!

seeker, posters have offered their experience on this often on threads you are on.

I went to private school as a (very) poor person. fully funded. my elder child is at a private school with more social diversity than my local state school. including (properly) poor children.

the fact is, you do not actually have experience of this, and yet you continue to protest it isn't true, that is 'must' be untrue, that it is not possible.

why do you not ever listen to people who actually have experience of this?