Is it worth paying for prep school?

[MrsJAlfredPrufrock]

I paid/pay for my teens to go to a selective boys' day Snr school. Prior to that they went to our nearest state primary school and passed their entrance exams without coaching. My younger two (6 and4) are at a state primary (a different one to their brothers as we've moved, on paper it is massively better, in reality it's not) and I'm wondering if people think it's worthwhile paying for prep school. I used to think it wasn't but I'm beginning to wonder, especially for things like music and languages.

What are other people's experiences?

Lol!

Colleger - Thank you by the way, I had forgotten about Musicale (my teen sat his grade music exams there so I knew about it but had forgotten). I've now signed the little ones up for some lessons after school once a week. Local choirs won't take them until they're 7 (incl St Peter's). Which sounds sensible probably.

MrsJ I'm sorry to hear you've gathered nothing from you researches into local prep schools. Perhaps we've just succeeded in confusing you more. The problem with questions like which school etc is that there isn't one simple answer. My grand mother, a wise women, used to say "if in doubt do nowt."

Happygardening - thanks. You aren't confusing me, I appreciate everyone's help. On balance I'm veering towards leaving them where they are, at least for now. I know SATs results are stoopid but two preps sent me their SATs results, proudly I think, and they aren't as good as the best state schools in the area.

Our local church choir took ds at 6 despite saying they don't take boys until 7. If you've got a talented singer who can read well then it may be worth speaking to the choir master. Ds auditioned and whilst he can read well a lot of what the choir sings is traditional hymns (so not modern English), and some Latin and Spanish. From what I see that means a lot of practice and memorising the words. Ds loves it and it's been a good discipline for him to experience at a young age.

I'm a bit late but with regard to getting 65% at CE, not only does it depend on the rigour of marking by senior schools (Bradfield's idea of 65% will be very different from Eton's or even Harrow's); it also depends on the level of paper sat. French, Maths and Latin have three levels and other subjects have two. 65% at level 3 is very, very different from 65% at level 1. Most good senior schools expect boys to sit level 2, although St Paul's, for example, demands level 3 in the subjects where it's available.

This means that a prep school can say " all boys achieved 65% at Common Entrance", but Johnny scraped it at level 1 whereas David passed at level 2 and 3. It's in no way comparable!

The CE papers are all the same so 65% in one school is 65% in another.

Also the selective schools normally require a minimum of 65% across the board whereas other schools require an average of 65% but the papers are still the same unless a school specifically asks for Level 3.

Doesn't it depend on the marking to some extent and how rigorously the marking scheme is applied? Is there any independent moderating bearing in mind that each school marks their own CE?

There is no independent moderating. 65% in one school is not the same as 65% in another. Parity might be claimed but in my experience it doesn't genuinely exist.

If the CE exam is out of 100 ( for example) then if a child gets 65 questions right then that is 65%!

Now a school may state that an A is 90% and another school may say an A is 85% but that does not change the fact that the papers are all the same. Of course it may be different marking in essay style questions but on a maths paper 65% is 65% at any school.

But colleger there are different levels in some papers and as schools mark the papers themselves this does allow for some variation in the marking. Ok perhaps not in maths and those requiring short answes but in subjects like history RS there must be some variation because the marking is subjective. I was given a report on how Win Coll mark their entrance exam and my DS's wonderful Latin tutor was really surprised at how picky they were and where marks were being taken off. He marks A level papers and he said they weren't this strict.

Also, with subjects like languages, a question may be worth, say, three marks and the mark scheme says, "three marks for a perfectly accurate translation, two for a mostly accurate translation, one mark for some meaning conveyed, no marks for no meaning conveyed".

The difference between 'mostly accurate' and 'some meaning conveyed' is subjective and different schools/markers will apply their own judgement based on their expectations. This is the same process as at GCSE, by the way. So there is room for variation even on short answer questions, certainly in my own subject.

Years ago we looked at a well known independent senior school for DS1 the recently appointed head (a hideous chap) made it very clear that he intended on improving the schools academic results. The required pass mark for CE was 50% so I asked him if he was going to increase the pass mark to which he replied;
"no but I'm going to make it harder to get 50"

Depends what school you choose - if it's a 'proper' prep school (and you can normally tell that by what they are charging) it is worth it's weight in gold. We moved in with my Mum in order to send our 3 DS. For the first 8 years we shared a car and had a small holiday about once every four years. For us it's been worth the sacrifice. Absolutely. I would do it again in a heartbeat - I think it really depends on how far up the priority list it comes for you AND yours. We moved ours from one 'prep' school to another and there was a vast difference. I would visit the ones you are interested in and get your DC's to do a taster day - ours were hooked as soon as they'd done that! Good Luck.

My 2 are at traditional prep and it's fab. Sadly we have to move abroad and it's breaking my heart as the schools where we are going are not a patch on it.

MrsJAlfred, you put it so beautifully higher up the thread when you said they seem to spend all day sitting on a mat and doing a bit of colouring. We chose state for primary and although there are huge advantages, it's quite clear that our Dc are not prepared in any way for 11+ (I don't mean specifically tutored, I mean, they haven't covered the syllabus because so much time is spent 'gardening', 'cooking', on 'projects' (lots of opportunities for half finished colouring in!)

A friend has recently moved her son to prep from DS1's class. he gets an hour's home work a night in french, history, geography etc as well as maths and english. When he saw us doing a Susan Daughtrey practise paper he said: 'Oh are those the ones you get to do at school every day?' Er, no. They are the ones they do at home when they come in. School was full of mat-sitting activities. We've started giving our boys up to an hour of work after school to make up for the short fall. They still get to go out on their bikes, have friends for tea, play Lego, but there's not so much mooching around time.

Sorry, that's a long winded way of saying, if the state school is OK, and crucially, if the child is happy there, you might choose to save the fees for secondary as you certainly can top up their learning at home more easily at primary school than later on.

racingheart what age are your children? My DS's went to a top boarding prep and I don't think they did an hours prep until yr 7.

My DCs had an hours prep from age 8 at their boarding prep school. If they had completed their prep then they just read a book. So I don't think an hour is unusual.

I actually haven't the faintest idea how much prep they did at prep I'll have to ask them but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an hour when they were 8.

Mine went to state primary and are currently in Year 7 at indies. If money wasn't a problem we would have gone private from the start. Our experiences are similar to those expressed by others eg. absence of homework, unchallenging work, left by teachers to coast subjects they found easy etc

In fact it was this experience that motivated us to max out our income and go for secondary indies

No children from state school who have joined my dds private school (yr 7) are in the sports teams - if that would concern you then prep is worth it for that alone!