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!

Morally I couldn't have my children going to a school that segregates. Nor could I allow my kids to go to a state grammar school where taxpayers pay for a school that excludes on grounds of ability. For me, those choides are more morally suspect than opting out of the system altogether and paying for my children's education myself. But people have to make their own decisions according to their own belief systems or selfish instincts. The system encourages such choices and such divisions and that is the problem.

I wouldn't choose a school that prioritised members of my own faith as I find that inconsistent with the basis of the faith. But I don't condemn anyone who does use a school which is available to them. I don't like lying.

Grammar? I'm not sure. I have no objection to children with a high academic potential having an education that supports that. Each child should have the best means of support for thier needs - whether that be a special school with a hydrotherapy pool and a high teacher:pupil ratio, or a grammar school with an emphasis on academic learning, or a school with excellent facilities in vocational subjects. But I don't like the 'you're not in, the door shuts NOW' aspect of a grammar. What about late developers? Those who may be young in the year and don't flourish until later? Or those who don't get through the exam but are genius material?

It really should be possible to run a fantastic secondary which is genuinely comprehensive.

But if you exclude on one basis, I think it's a bit naive to say 'we are diverse in all areas except for the one on which we exclude'.

That's all.

I don't think that I would mind grammar schools if they had a very wide catchment area and just took that real high flyers -no more than the top 10% and preferably less.

Children at state schools can be excluded on the basis of money also, though. When a family moves into the catchment area of a good school, with the attendant inflated house price, they are paying for their schooling just as much as a family who pays for private education (and are doing so a lot less honestly as well). It may be even worse actually, as by buying that house and installing their children in the school they are jumping the queue with their children and excluding others who cannot afford to live in the expensive houses.

I have seen this happen in rl: lots of new, very expensive 'executive' houses were built around the local excellent comprehensive that everyone wants their children to go to, with the result that the families on the nearby (much poorer) estate suddenly found that the school was full and no longer accessible to them. They now have to use a much less desirable (and much further away) school on the other side of town.

exotic - but then you are likely to get such limited places taken mainly by a) children who have been prepped for it (at private schools) from the beginning of their schooling, by schools who specialise in getting children into particular grammar schools, or b) the children from state school but from equally pushy and clued-up families, who have been pushed towards grammar school and specifically tutored for it at home for years. It would be nice to think that genuine ability could be spotted and that children from other backgrounds who were naturally extremely bright and able would get in, but I doubt that would happen very often.

Unfortunately I expect that you are right Mmmmnotsure. I would just love there to be a way where you got the truly academic, the way above average, a place- instead of the top almost quarter where there is no difference between the last one who got the place and the first one who didn't.
I would like every DC to do one practice paper to get the idea and then do the exam. If they are intelligent enough to work it out for themselves they would be in the right place- and it would cut out all those who have been 'prepared'.
Pie in the sky stuff unfortunately.
I just hate the sheer hypocrisy that people trot out- 'the system helps the DC from the disadvantaged background get out of it'. It may have been true in the 'old days' but not now-it is skewed in favour of pushy, middle class parents who will do their utmost to get their DC a place. I also hate the idea that it is only the intelligent DC from the disadvantaged background who deserves a step up-the rest should know their place and stay there!!

I think that it helps if you take the very top. e.g. in a place like Reading, only a few from each primary school take the 11+ and it does tend to be the genuinely very bright. No more than 5 DCs (and generally just one or two) per primary school tend to get a place. That seems a much better system to me.

F you could find a way of genuinely selecting the very top regardless of background, preparation etc et etc then that might be a good idea- there would still be loads of children left to make a proper comprehensive. But I think that's an impossible task- the savvy privileged parent would find a way round whatever system was put in place.

I wonder what would happen if you selected 10% at random and told them they were the brightest of the bright and treated them accordingly.

I think that if you just had 2 or 3 DCs per primary school you would get the best, because any DC in the class could tell you who they would be.

I wonder what would happen if you selected 10% at random and told them they were the brightest of the bright and treated them accordingly.

I think that there is often a lot of truth in this-but not in true intelligence.

@smallwhitecat

I have noticed before that raising the SN aspect causes discomfort to people who are ideologically opposed to independent education, because they haven't quite got the guts to say sod the kids with SN, one size should fit all and no parent should ever go private - even though that is the logical result of their position.

There's a converse argument to this - those parents who send their children to private school except the ones with SEN.

If they believe that private schools are so much better than the state equivalent and are voting with their feet, then this must mean that they don't care as much for their SEN children.

I'm afraid I can't agree, exoticfruit.
Reading is the worst of both worlds: two extremely exclusive grammars competing with a comprehensive system.

In Reading, the catchment area for the grammars is vast: they are the only two grammar schools in the Reading area now and the competition to get in is very fierce.

You can't even say that it's the top few who get in, regardless of background. When I was at school in Reading, you could pinpoint with devastating accuracy who was going and who was not, regardless of how bright they were. Without fail, it was the better off middle-class kids.

How many of their pupils are eligible for free school meals? Well below the average for other schools in the area.

I don't understand your point fantastic voyage.

And I would like to. because a posting suggesting that a parent may care less about their child who has sn would need to be clear if it is going to avoid being really really offensive.
And would need to avoid the awful assumption that every child with sn is the same.

That is where it fails,Tanith, because it is the middle class-it does however sort them into the very best. A DC who needs a tutor from year 3 or who spends a year doing practice papers isn't going to beat the real high flyers, the way they can if 23% get places. However, the comprehensive favours the middle class just as much, because they can buy a house in the 'right' catchment area.
The only answer is to improve education for everyone.

I have read fantasticvoyage's post several times and didn't really understand it. The only time that I have considered private education was for my DS with special needs.

I'm not quite sure what your point is, FantasticVoyage. Are you saying that people who don't use private schools don't care for any of their children?

You are aware that private schools specialising in SEN exist, aren't you? You do know that there are pupils at Eton and Winchester with SEN?

Exoticfruit, it doesn't even do that

The way it's set up means that it's easier for a pupil from a relatively low achieving primary to be selected that from a higher achieving primary.
So the savvy middle class parent will send their child to a primary on one of the estates for their final year, make up any deficiency with private tutors, and thus give their child a better chance of getting in. One even moved onto the estate for a year when I was living there.

It also means that the grammars can claim to take children from any primary, even those serving the estates.

I know families who send their nt children to private school and their sen child state because often- not always- state schools
are more geared up for sen. And there is a tendency for some private schools- some, not all- to select out children with special needs along the way.

I can only assume fantasticvoyage knows nothing at all of the SEN minefield, or the legal implications of statements etc.

what a shocker - poster posts on MN with no knowledge whatsoever of what they are talking about

Knowing nothing is a fine qualification for participating in this thread :)

@Pagwatch

I don't understand your point fantastic voyage.

And I would like to. because a posting suggesting that a parent may care less about their child who has sn would need to be clear if it is going to avoid being really really offensive.

Earlier this week on another talkboard I read posts from a parent rubbishing state education because son with SEN was being bullied. Said parent then mentioned how much better daughter's private education was, yet the son remains in the state sector.

So what I don't understand is the motivations of a parent like this. Other than some sort of cost/benefit analysis run on their own family.

Ah, another straw man.

That is a frankly ridiculous point.

The fact that someone has two children one of whom is in private school and one of whom isn't suggests to me that the parent has tried to get each child the best education available to each. There could ve a huge number of reasons why a child with sen would be at a different school. My son had to travel quite a long way to get to a school that can cope with his complex sn.

To infer that a parent cares about one more than the other is a particularly vile interpretation.

Would you try and throw that at me. My dd is at a private school , my son is at state. Or would you like me to get my 15 year old son into my DDs girls prep.

Good grief.

There's a tendency for a lot of state schools to discourage applications from children with SN as well.