If you can afford private education but remain in the state sector...

[TheseJeansHaveShrunk]

It's going to be hard to avoid this becoming another state v private thread, but what I'm interested in is a slightly different take on that debate. It's not "which is better?" but "if you think state school is better even though you could afford private education, then why is that?"

The question is based on the assumptions that the DC in question is/are reasonably bright (so might benefit academically from academically selective education), that the state school is non-selective (as most people don't have access to grammar schools), and that you hope for your DC to go to a good university (to make the £££££ fees worthwhile!)

I've been mulling this over ever since I heard some maths professor from Cambridge talking on the radio about the age-old private v state inequality of Oxbridge admissions. He was all for improving access for state school applicants but said that the simple fact was that for maths, even the best state schools generally teach only to the A-level syllabus, whereas the best private schools take their maths/further maths A-level candidates well beyond the syllabus and so the state school applicants are at a huge disadvantage - they simply don't have the starting level of knowledge required for the course.

This made me wonder: with this sort of unequal playing field, if you have the choice of private education, what reasons might you have not to take it?

Would be interested to hear from those who've made this choice - how it's working out, or if your DC have finished school now, how did it work out? Did they go to good universities/get good jobs, etc? On the other side of things, if you paid for private schooling but now regret it, why?

My DC go to a state school by the way.

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"Both my DC attend schools that provide an educational experience I could not even vaguely aproximate however many tutors I threw at it, or however many hours I sat with my DC."

Wordfactory, that is why this debate is only meaningful at an individual family level. I do not have any private schools that would even vaguely meet your description available to me within non-boarding distance - and the choice between a mediocre private school and a great state school is obviously differently-weighted from the choice between a great private school and a mediocre state school....

Mordion- what I was trying to say was that most state school parents have little personal experience of private schools and vice versa. And very few in either sector have personal experience of the Oxbridge selection process.

Private school. My parents could afford to send us private but didn't as a private education didn't fit with my Fathers's political beliefs. My sibings did ok at state school, i didn't. I did well enough in class to get by, not so bad i needed extra help and not good enough to warrant the teacher's attention.

I averaged a 15/20 for essays in history. I wrote an entire essay on the
Magna Carta and called it the Magnet Curtain, because i couldn't read the teacher's blackboard handwriting and the silly cow didn't read my essay. She gave me a 15/20 as per usual, for a essay on the Magnet Curtain. The error was only realised at the end of term when my Mother helped me revise and read my essay. She complained to the Head that the teacher was evidentally marking essays without reading them but he did nothing.

Another teacher taught us the wrong syllabus so the top GCSE mark in our class was a C, attained by students normally averaging A*. I failed that GCSE. We complained and nothing was done.

I made it to University and did well. I had a great career and made a name for myself. And then it somehow got back to my secondary school and i, XXX, was a former pupil of the school. They wrote to my agent and asked that i visit them and give a speech. I declined due to a heavy work schedule. I felt i owed them nothing. I educated myself post school and my very good University educated me too.

I will be sending my children to a good private school, i am not going to chance giving them the crap education i had for the sake of my political beliefs. Two faced perhaps but that is your answer!

My dc have attended both state and private schools. It still depends on the particular schools in question though. I doubt very much that anyone else will find themselves in the same situation as my dc.

As to the OP - we started of in the state, as it seemed the obvious choice to use the local village school. It never really occurred to us to pay extra for an education. However - I never dreamed how lacking in experiences a school could be. My primary school experience was not like the one on offer to my dc so we moved to a school (private) that could offer more. We originally chose state as we thought it would offer an adequate education.

Seeker I think it's completely erroneous to assume most parents who send their DC private have no experience of state. That may have been true in the seventies. I know you're a bit ancient ...but these days many parents use a mixture, swapping between sectors. The majority use state primaries, then move at 11 or 16. Many more have mixed siblings. And the vast vast majority of us will have extended families in state schools currently.

I know it suits your narrative to say we know nothing of comprehensives and are even frightened of it...but the stats just don't support that!

bonsoir I'm absolutely certain there are some very rivch folk who use state. I just don't know them .

I also don't know the schools in Kent.

What I do know, though, is that private education here in the UK is frighteningly expensive. Good day schools are around £6k per term with bus fare etc.

This added to house prices make for slim pickings.

Wordfactory- I think you might have missed me saying that the lack of direct experience is on both sides- I was 't saying that it was coming from private school parents. Mind you, then along comes expressomonkey.......

teacher - our choices are mediocre private or mediocre state

The longer I spend mired in education (3 DCs) the more I wonder what the point of paying so much to go private is.

DD1's GCSEs were more than satisfactory. Would it have been good value to pay X thousands per year to turn a few more of the As into A*s? I'm not sure really.

Would I be doing my non-academic DS any favours by sending him somewhere where he would struggle?

So where does that value added really count? IMO it is only at post GCSE that paying the extra truly makes sense. At this stage you know what to spend your money on - an excellent vocational course, A levels, IB?

seeker I think it's statistically far more common to have state school parents with no experience of private school, either for any of their DC or any DC in their circle.

That must be the case for the majority of people outside of MN, I think.

However, statistically most private school parents will have experience of state school in some shape or form.

I agree word factory. Mind you Ii do 't actually count one's own childhood experience- that wouldn't be fair to either sector

Naming, I wonder whether, in fact, the time when we will be glad that we have some money to put towards DCs' education will come at university age, as I would not want them to limit their choices about what and where to study based on the size of the debt that they were racking up...

(My siblings and I all studied highly academic subjects at prestigious universities ... and then went off to 'save the world' in ill-paid creative / public service jobs, careers which have gone on to nourish both heart and head. We might have made more 'cynical' choices had our university studies been funded in a different way - I am of the grants generation - and I would be sad if my children are forced down that route through money issues)

There can't be many privately educated children who have no state educated friends or relations I would think. And a huge number of private users do use the state system for part of their education - I think if you count all children who have been privately educated for some of their education it's about 20%, far more than the 7% that are privately educated at any given time.

So a lot of people do have experience of both. What you can't ever tell though is how any child might have performed if they'd had a different education.

I think that's a fair point teacher.

I certainly wouldn't spend cash on school fees if it left us short for tertiary education. Nor would anyone I know!

That said, loads of kids out there whose parents can't afford school fees or help with university. Most, I'd suspect.

It's a good question. I am not from the UK and don't like the idea of fee paying schools, and what it comes with, I have many friends who send their children to local fee paying schools and they are always talking about it it's getting on my nerves. They compare where my children are in terms of learning to where their children are, and clearly are expecting a lot more from teachers/schools than I am. Seriously irritating. However we do a lot of work with our kids at home, they speak two languages, are very good at maths (DH is a maths teacher) and I suppose we keep the money for investment and to pay for university. One of our children is G&T but I wouldn't consider sending him to private school now, maybe for secondary school I don't know. We can afford it, but it never seriously came up. They both go to a very good local school, we are happy with the teaching, progress, racial mix, etc. But at the end of the day for me it comes down to not knowing much about the private sector, not having an interest in it. Fear of the unknown? Maybe.

Wordfactory,

Absolutely agree with your last statement. However, I am in the group of parents identified by the OP - those who could (at a significant stretch) afford private school fees but who choose to send children to state.

I realise that this is a luxurious state of affairs, but was musing following Naming's post whether there is any stage of education (for our family, living where we do) where I believe the 'value added might really count'.

I find it soul destroying that my children will not have the freedom of choice in their further education that I did. And that FHE will in feasibly return to being the preserve of the rich.

Increasingly

I too am of the grants generation. I am actually more optimistic about the latest approach to student finance than I was of the previous system. The numbers are large but as I am looking at the options with DD1 my attitude is that it is simply a graduate tax. There is no point in saving thruppence on the loan by attending a course that isnt right.

What I do think is wrong with the current system is the usual problem with the squeezed middle who are expected to pay heavily for their adult children to attend university.

What I do know, though, is that private education here in the UK is frighteningly expensive. Good day schools are around £6k per term with bus fare etc.

This added to house prices make for slim pickings.

Its less grim up north. Benighted by excess of faith schools hereabouts but that's another story.

I do know a few pretty rich (not very, as in money means nothing, but pretty as in wouldn't really miss school feel money) people who send their kids to state schools. Not sure what difference that makes, but I do.

I think those who say they could afford private but at a stretch don't really 'qualify' for the OP's question. You'd have to be able to afford private without any trade offs or other sacrifices for this choice to be non-financial.

One reason I'd probably go private is to be a paying customer and therefore have a school that would hopefully be more willing to pay attention to what parents want and any issues.

I know one couple who were in the position of being able to afford private comfortably. The husband went to a private school, the wife to a not particularly good state school, (not sure whether it was grammar or sec mod), but they chose to send their children to the local comprehensive and were very satisfied with it. They were running their own business and had plans to introduce the children into it. Oxbridge/Russell group didn't figure highly in their estimation as to offering a good preparation for the business. It was a good comprehensive and I suspect that they thought the Dad's private school was only so-so, which probably influenced their choice.

What I do get from these threads is how varied schools are both in the state and private sector and you'd be daft to make your choice just on that basis. We chose private secondary for ds1 because our local schools weren't great and we didn't want to move house.

Certainly, if I look at my own wider family and acquaintances in the UK, those who live in Kent are all well acquainted with both the state and private sector and actively consider and use both when choosing schools for their DCs. Those that live elsewhere mostly only consider private (especially when they have had their fingers burned once by putting a first child in their local primary and having to extract him/her in extremis...).