Why on earth would you go state if you could afford private?

[Schmedz]

This thread is for Maisie and happygardening . I like dares!

Clearly CBM we are on opposite sides of the argument here. I don't actually think it is 'hysterical' or even the sole preserve of the middle classes to want your child to have the best possible education.

IMHO a school with large class sizes, poor SEN and low academic achievement is not the best environment for helping my HF ASD DD achieve her potential and unfortunately that is the 'choice' available in the state system for her - and also the only one that is within walking distance. Others further away are either Catholic (which we are not, and thus excluded according to the admission criteria), out of borough and oversubscribed, or involve an unrealistically long journey on public transport.

Please don't fail to recognise your own assumptions in this debate.

After reading tiggy's post, perhaps it should be 'I don't think it is unreasonable to want a school place at all!'. Glad it worked out for your DC in the end x

I get coffee from Starbucks a couple of times a day. There is free coffee at work but Starbucks is marginally better IMO

Now you can scream at me that coffee is coffee and that x 3 times a day x 5 days a week x 48 weeks a year is some serious money to spend on something that I can get for free. However, that isn't serious money to me.

My point is this. Your income level is such that it's madness to spend £x pa on private education when a free option is available so you can't understand why another parent would want to go private. So you tell yourself that it must be because they are snobs or because they think the state system is crap .... or ..... or.

Basically many MNetters are seeking to make sense of decisions made by people whose circumstances aren't the same as yours.

I just think people need to remember that when they talk about exercising their choice to go private, it it is a choice only available to a privileged few. People seem to find it really uncomfortable to be reminded that they are privileged. Not sure why.

Barnsley- that is absolute nonsense. If it was true surely these school leavers would not go on to succeed professionally and that is not the case! Just look at the backgrounds of the top lawyers, bankers, politicians etc. It is too simplistic to put this all down to nepotism!

The best teachers believe in good education for all children and are fully fledged believers in 'every child matters. Education is about social skills, tolerance, mixing, and understanding of real life as much as academic achievement. If a child has love, support and limits instilled at home they will do as well as they can do whatever the school they attend. Simple as.

Well said BB and true of all good educators in whatever school setting they find themselves.

Shame about the other unbelievably ignorant opinions expressed!

Was that directed at me? Believe me I am well aware of the positives and negatives of private school education, and having a child in both private and also one in a comprehensive I can confidently say that there are good and bad teachers in both.

Seeker, I have no idea why anyone would be uncomfortable to be reminded they are privileged. I feel remarkably humbled by the fact that I have the privileges I do (partly as many involve the accident of birth and the path that enabled me to follow) and I don't feel uncomfortable about it at all. It doesn't make me a worse or better person than anyone else. Anyone who thinks it does, has a problem.

I feel very lucky to have been born into a family with supportive parents and had/have a loving home, to be healthy, to have healthy children, good friends, to live in a democratic country and to have a job I thoroughly enjoy and which pays me a very reasonable income. I am well aware that in terms of the global community I am in the fortunate 8% of people who have attended university. I also feel very lucky to be able to afford to choose to send my children to a private school (although I would prefer to have a comparable option for whatever proportion of council tax goes to the LEA!)

I believe in counting blessings, and that means you HAVE to remind yourself of your privileges. There are always people with more, and people with less than you have.

Not you at all scarlettsmummy!! I'm sorry you thought that!

I picked out the only comments in Barnsley's thread that made sense and agreed. References to 'ignorant opinions' referred to everything else s/he said!

seeker - People aren't uncomfortable with being reminded that they are privileged. They are just pissed off uncomfortable with bring lectured by you.

Can't you ever simply contribute to a thread without feeling the need to bypass the subject and instead criticise a poster for using words which you consider to be insensitive?

This is a wind up thread started as a tease in response to a conversation on another thread.

People have responded mostly thoughtfully about why they choose state schools. However a couple of people have got upset/angry at the suggestion that in order to send your children to private school (with one or two notable exceptions) you have to be quite rich. I have seen this before, both on here and in real life. I really don't understand why- I would have thought that was a given. And i think most private school parents agree- it's something that's important to them, and they are relieved and thankful that they can pay. The only reason I can come up with to explain why some people are so determined to persist in the "we're not rich, we're just ordinary people" line is that at some level they don't like to think of themselves as privileged. No idea why- Paging Dr Freud!!!

Absolutely, Schmedz.

Mind you, to address one small point your post, there is a lot I'd like a tax refund on- but paying for stuff you don't use as well as what you do is how taxation works!

seeker - So true! It's nice to find something we agree on

I do feel uncomfortable sometimes at being privileged enough to afford a private education for my kids, just because I know parents who would love to do the same but can't afford it - and they have to send their kids to the same school that I rejected for my kids. It's not fair - they are good people and want their kids to go to a good school, but we had the choice to send ours elsewhere and they didn't.

My DC are absurdly privileged to live as they do and they know it. But a prolific MINUTE poster told me to stop saying it! It rubbed people up apparently. So waddya gonna do?

The surprise on this thread:

1. All MNetters who could do private but go state live right next door to a state school that produces better results than St Paul's or Eton. You really must tell Ofsted, ladies - they'll be thrilled.

The lack of surprise:

1. "I'm buggered if I'm spending anything on the children" comes out when posted as "We prefer to spend our money on other things". Like the bird who claimed building herself a conservatory benefited her children as much as a top-class education.

The "privilege" word really winds people up. Odd. As I said "Paging Dr Freud!"

Gosh, corygal Yet another example of the lovely manners and courtesy learned at private school.......

Cory there are states schools which get better results than St Paul's and Eton. Even a cursory glance at the league tables demonstrates this. Surely it's not a surprise that some MNs live close enough to those schools to send their kids there? Also there are plenty of private schools that are pretty poor and surely it's not surprising that there are some MNs who live near those, and therefore prefer the state sector too? I do not understand why some people can't grasp this.

Thanks, seeker - I have PMT. Oestrogen overrides all those years learning to get in and out of sports cars

Better school. Wanted a community vibe for ds. Don't believe in private ed. was private myself as was dp and both hated.

Russians I get you entirely - it's just that every mother of every child who attends these wonder schools seems to have popped up on here.

And of course you are more than right about awful private schools - imho if you're going to do private, get them into a top school or don't bother. If you live in a big town you can do it fine - otherwise, there's a reason why most of the other top schools are boarding, you have to travel.

I remember commenting on the frequency of 'absurdly priveliged', but it wasn't because I thought it was 'upsetting people', and I never said that at all!

Like 93% of the population we couldn't afford to send ours to private school.

However I still feel they are going to some of the best schools in our city.

Am not convinced private schools offer a better education.

I think any apparent benefits are due to the self-selection of the families using the schools rather than the quality of the teaching or other aspects of school life.

Cory - well, I can't help that. However since my DD does go to one of those schools (and at the same time the posh schools round here aren't great) I find it quite annoying when people, you know, suggest I'm making it up that her school is better than anything the private sector has to offer and way better than anything the private sector within a radius of - I don't know, 100 miles? - has to offer.