Any parents who are struggling with school fees and now regret the decision?

[freakazoidroid]

I am considering private school for my daugher from reception in sept.
It will mean tightening the purse strings quite substanially.
I wondered if anybody had sent their dc's to private school and maybe a few years in slighty regrets the decision,from a financial point. What sacrifices have you made ,it is making your life harder and did anybody pull their dc out and put them into state?

wordfactory
That's the one. Performances start around 4 in the afternoon.
First interval is around 30 minutes - champagne and canapes while wandering around the grounds
Main interval is 90 minutes - picnics on the lawns and terraces looking out across the countryside
Then coffee after the performance while waiting for the car park to clear.
Its expensive - find somebody who is a "friend" to take you but its fab - and receives not a penny of taxpayer subsidy.
glyndebourne.com/production/le-nozze-di-figaro

I'd rather spend money on experiences like that than school fees

Ooh melikes the sound of that talking.

Here's seeker at herGlyndebourne She is so down with the working classes.

Sorry you failed to picknup my reference. I was quoting Margaret Thatcher's Housing Minister and Old Etonian, Sir George Young, who famously talked about " the sort of people you step over on the way to the Opera"

the privately educated are absurdly represented at Oxbridge, and even more so at some other RG universities.

Which "privately educated" people are we talking about? The ones who were there for the whole seven years? Or the ones who, precisely because they are bright enough to get into Oxbridge and RG, passed the sixth form entrance test (and perhaps got a scholarship too?).
Independent schools are canny - they like to 'buy in' talent and then claim it as their own

seeker Aren't you ex public school yourself? Did your parents teach you to kick homeless people on the way home from the opera?

senua - yes, good point. And the reverse of that works too. They dump all their dross back into the state system at various points to make way for the talent coming in from the state. But even so.

Nope- I was HE apart from a few terms at a succession of strange convents abroad, where salvation through works was generally the order of the day. Stepping over, or even passing by on the other side would not hqve gone down well.

I want to know what the poor OP has done that makes some of you hi-jack her threads when you aren't answering her question, and have no relevant experience of the question at hand.

You just turn up on these threads to bang on about the evils of private education and it seems to be happening with alarming regularity. Seeker and Elaine especially, we understand you loathe private education OK. WE GET IT!

Don't want to have another fight thanks and I have nothing relevant to add to the OP's question.

seeker - I think lots of people who have experienced British state schools first hand are often not keen on it for their own children. Perhaps in much the same way that HE adults aren't keen to repeat the experience for their own children. A parent's perspective is totally different to the perspective of a pupil. DS1 * DS2 talk about their old primary school and I barely recognise it, even though I was a parent governor there for a number of years and spent two afternoons each week hearing readers in the classroom.

Thanks for that Diabolo.
mrsj my problem with that is that actually I did experience bad state school, but I found things had changed since I was there and even though mine was crap it didn't stop me getting a first and a phd, or dp going to cambridge. So given that what is on offer now is so much better, I think it's win win as far a principles, bank balance and outcome are all concerned.

The issue is that state schools now and state schools 20/30 years ago are completely different animals. And I have two children who have gone through the state primary system in a school that many mumsnetters would die rather than send their children to. I have seen the system first hand wearing several different hats.

The experience of people who went to state school 20 years ago is no more relevant to the experience of children today than my own bizarre and arcane education.

I went to private day, as did three of my siblings, the fourth went to private boarding
out of our children, one family are at private boarding (MOD subsidy), three of us have our kids at state and the other one has only just sprogged

DH was state comp, son of a grammar boy who hated grammar, he was the first in his family to go to uni
my grandfathers were at Uni together

and DH works at private and state schools so sees all options at first hand

If I did not live in the area I do, I might have had to work full time to pay for private, but the state schools round here are fab (and have regular cross flow with the private schools) so I'm very lucky to be able to spend my earnings on other things (like riding, tennis, dancing, the gym, gokarting - lucky I like grey hair and no makeup isnt it!)

I went entirely to state schools, RC primary then grammar. Both excellent. My teen sons went right through primary school in the state system and then DS1 went to the local comp, which I was v relaxed about (this was before I started kicking homeless people en route home from the opera ). Private school hadn't crossed my mind at all. But the reality of the comp (and it was properly comprehensive) was a bit of a shock. So many people failed/were failed. I could see him failing quite clearly and he was only 12/13 so we left after two years. So many of DS1's friends were much brighter than him and they have been failed/they failed school. One girl in particular was supremely bright, startlingly so, and she left at 17 to train to be a hairdresser, which is going to take her 3 years - the same time it would have taken her to read for a degree. A handful went on to do well but not as many as should have. At a private school, delivery on potential is but guaranteed. Why can't that happen in a comp? The teachers at the comp were lovely, the school was lovely in so many ways, the pupils were lovely. There was no obviously bad behaviour or anything weird or peculiar going on, there was just this culture of not bovvering that pervaded. Such a shame.

So I make no apology for having changed my mind based absolutely on how thing ARE or were a v few years ago.

Prufrock
out of interest - where in the country are you?
as in there is SUCH a postcode lottery in the excellence of state education
and I'm pretty certain that Gove's approach (as would the expansion of grammars) would exacerbate it.

Jajas- if you notice I didn't turn up on this thread until it broadened out. Honest. You can look and see.

Same. Not that I need anyone to let me off.

Avoiding all the back and forwards above.

The most sensible option for you IMHO, as others have said, if it is going to be a struggle in reception is wait. The differential at the age of your child between the benefits to be gained from private or state (obviously depending on whether the state schools AND indeed private schools you are looking at are good in your opinion) is far, far smaller than that at secondary. Many schools that offer education right through will have a policy where bursaries available to the bottom end of the school are limited, and scholarships almost unheard of. (This is not the case in all schools, but it certainly is in some). Going into secondary, you will have a better idea of your child's strengths, areas that you need your chosen school to excel in, and indeed whether you still feel private education is the best option or necessary.

amichrissima's suggestion is a good one - start saving as though you were paying fees now - I would suggest at the SENIOR end of private fees. If you can manage, huzzah, if you can't after a while you will have some level of savings to enjoy.

There is of course nothing to stop you moving towards private school once your little one is a few years further up their schooling if you feel things are not working out and you are really not happy.