Private school at primary or secondary - which is the better option?

[Reastie]

I live where there's the 11+ in an affluent area where essentially secondary modern/comprehensive schools are mainly people who fail their 11+ and their parents can't afford private education and are generally rough and not very high expectations/behaviour (I work in education in the area at all types of secondary schools so know this).

DD is only tiny but I'm looking at preschools for her and thinking about primary schools (ideally she'd go to the same preschool as primary).

DH and I have accepted that if she fails her 11+ we will pay for her to go to private school. We will be in a better financial position then to pay for it as we will have paid off the mortgage on a second property and have a monthly rental income (we sound better off than we are in that sentence!).

However, talking to people today and looking around various primary/pre schools I'm now wondering whether we aren't better off paying for private school for her primary on the basis they will give her more individualised care and stretch her better so that she will be more likely to pass the 11+ and so go on to grammar school at secondary (and so we spend money now to save money later IYKWIM). There's always the possibility DD still won't pass it but at least we will have done all we can for her to get there and so I'll feel happy that I've done what I can.

I'm not a pushy parent (although realise I probably sound like I am!) I just want the best for DD and want her to flourish as much as possible.

So, are there any thoughts on paying for private primary on the foundations hopefully it will help get DD through the 11+ and give her more of an individualised education? Is this common? It is worthwhile?

rob99 You might think that you have it tough, but those of us working in those industries you so despise, ALSO have to work quicker. In fact, it might even be more stressful for us because we actually work in those industries, and hence, have immediate orders / expectations to meet. We are often the ones who get the crap when some third party further down the line completely mucks up deadlines, for example.

You say you are an engineer - can you please tell me why some motorways are only half-functioning for months / years or trainlines closed due to perceived "engineering work" when there are no engineers or indeed any type of workers around on the site for at least 12 hours or better still 24/7?!? About 99% of the time, I see no one working on the M25 or whatever. Yet, a few lanes are always closed. It's a miracle when anything does get done. My very British DH always comments on the fact that when we are in Europe, when they close down a section, you actually see people working on it relentlessly, and it opens up again in a few days time - when in his words, "it would take at least a few weeks in the UK".

I did mention on here before - but that Grand Designs episode where German builders were meant to work with British ones was a disgrace. All the Brits had to do was lay down a foundation, and the truck got lost travelling to the site only a few miles away. The Germans came all the way across the channel, were on time, and had to wait!

I told you that people have to compete on a global scale these days. Could it be that your perception of having to work quicker is based on the fact that what may have been seen as "acceptable timescales" in the UK, is no longer acceptable when compared globally? Because that's what the City often looks for. If it has the choice between investing in your company, and one in another country that is just a lot more efficient and productive... why on Earth should they choose yours?

And as for the amount of time to be worked... my contract says something like 37 hours a week. I've already worked over 75 hours this week so far on what is a 5-day working week (the week is not yet finished). The fact that my health assessment (that has all this info) actually said that I cope well with stress, and am not overworked at all makes me think that some people who complain over their 40 hours of work should really just toughen up a bit.

I'm not sure how you can gauge that I'm angry just by me referring to the elite as Tarquin and Tabitha. I'm not angry at all. I'm happy enough in my job. It's when dicks down south start to piss about with your job and conditions of work that it gets a little irritating. Of course I'm talking nonsense because everything is rosy in the garden and the private and public debt, poverty and selfishness in the UK today is a figment of my imagination.

Still, at least if we get rid of this 2 tier education system and make all your little darlings walk to their local state school it will reduce the traffic of a morning and afternoon by two thirds and the kids will all have an even crack of the whip. I was schooled in Salford by the way....imagine subjecting Tarquin and Tabitha to that ladies.

Tasmania....There are dozens of kinds of engineering. My field of engineering has about as much to do with motorways as the bakery managers job at Asda - I'd have thought that would be quite obvious, even for a lady ! So, I'm sorry, I can't answer the issue you have with the motorways.

Wordfactory.....Tarquin and Tabitha using their share option cash to feed their ponies was just an analogy, I do understand that maybe the dividends/share options/bonuses etc, might be used for other luxuries other than feeding the horses. Sorry if you mis-understood my point.

"Still, at least if we get rid of this 2 tier education system and make all your little darlings walk to their local state school it will reduce the traffic of a morning and afternoon by two thirds"
You have a very insular view of the world we like many live in the countryside most children here don't have a school to walk too.

Rob99, did you not read my post about the mothers at my local state school driving half a mile up the road in their range rovers? This doesn't just happen in Cheshire either as I saw in in Surrey too and here in E Sussex.

Oh and I know Salford schools very well. The school I was teaching in was just off chapel street. Lots of issues. Hence my point about the real gap being within the state sector and not between state and private. But I guess my post and points don't fit the argument!

We don't use our "share option cash" to feed our ponies my DH and I work to do it. I've been around horses all my life I've met very few that do this.
I'm afraid your stereotypical view of many UK families who send their children to independent schools is very far removed from the actual reality. In fact you making yourself look slightly ridiculous,

There are less RR's and more old cars at my DC's £33 000 PA school than there are at one of the nice middle class state schools I work at.

rob99 I know there are loads of engineers out there - but you are just as guilty of generalizing with your Tarquin & Tabitha comments. As much as you may complain about it, companies are generally there to make money for their owners. They are not there to simply pay employees (unless it's some unique co-op setup or a small partnership where the employees are the owners).

With public companies, the shareholders are the owners. They must get a return on their investment... otherwise, it would probably be best they just give their money away to charities.

Not sure how much you know about finance - but shares in companies that pay a lot of dividends are generally bought by income-seeking fund managers / pension funds. Sometimes, the former feeds into the other. As someone else in this thread said, it is very likely that it the major shareholders of your company are pension funds. The reason they are "into" income is that as people retire, pension funds need a constant stream of income to pay out to pensioners.

The people who I think you are moaning about (big bonuses, et al.) are often in a different branch of finance who are probably as little related to the shares of your company as you are to motorways...

PS: Most people who have horses and send their kids to private school are naturally too skint to have a Range Rover, by the way... you are probably talking about the 0.75% or whatever of the population that can have whatever they dream of!!!

Well in wilmslow it was RRs and X4s at both but here it is definitely more Volvo territory at our independent school.
And it really is also true that there are some families living very modestly in 3bed semis and paying school fees whereas the state catchment here and in Cheshire was large detached 1930s houses. Parents with large disposable incomes jetting off to Dubai for oct half term and skiing in feb half term.
In Cheshire I felt that the local parents all had very similar financial situations and some chose to spend their money on fees, others on other stuff. The demographics of the kids and their parents using both state and private was very similar. It was much the same in Surrey.

So arguing that there's a divide is fine but the line isn't drawn where you seem to think.

I agree with MaryKate (couldn't resist that)

The Divide Line is the classic Rich v Poor. But that is not likely to go away unless you bring in proper Communism - and we all know that does not and never really did work. If you think about it, you wouldn't get so many new millionaires and billionaires in China... if they had "proper Communism" over there.

A few years ago, I always wondered how some people lived in very modest / not nice areas or houses... could even be council houses, and yet, had a BMW outside the front door. It took me forever to figure out that they may actually never be able to afford to move to a nicer house / area - but they may just have enough money to be able to afford that pretty car. Where I live... a private school education for one child (extrapolated to years and years of ever increasing fees) is far cheaper than having a larger house with land, but sending your kids to state school. So maybe, as with the car, if you can't upgrade to that big house, you'd spend it on the school instead?

MaryKatherine. The difference between the DC"s in the golden triangle of Cheshire and DC"s in Manchester most be the biggest difference in the country .I had a friend who taught in salford and some of the incidents were dangerous. Having lived in the area most of my life you are quite right that there is a slighty different attitude regarding state and private, from other areas in the south .Despite when a Comprehensive School in Osbornes constituency ,received a unsatsifactory report from ofsted claimed that they had to deal with a double whamy of private schools and a nearby selective area.

MaryKatherine.....I'm fielding all sorts of of issues so I'm sorry I didn't get around to your specific point.

"Extrapolated".....Just a minute, I've just got to go and look that up. Back in a minute.

Tasmania...."could even be council houses"...EVEN council houses :-)
Yeah, I know what shareholders are, I know they need a return, thanks for the sermon....point is, the government sold off the family silver to make a quick buck. My employer had 250k employees in 1990, now it's less than 100k employees. That's 150k british jobs gone......because of cost cutting, to give Tarquin and Tabitha 8 pence a share dividend twice a year. I think that's crap, but that's capitalism.

You rich mummies in the suburbs might not have noticed the crash in 2007 but the economic model that you appear to be singing the praises of has a few very rich winners and an awful lot of losers. Fortunately my wife and I both have jobs so we're very lucky compared to some.

Schoolnurse £33k PA school.......that's £8k more than my gross salary PA....it really is a different world. That's brilliant !

Extrapolation: A method or conclusion based on statistics

rob - you are an engineer and you earn £25k??? Our graduate trainees start on £26k. But you are happy which is the main thing.

£25k is Ok in Salford, I dare say if I lived in London and the home counties I'd be living in a cardboard box on that salary. The trouble is Manchester has attracted a lot of money in the last 20 years or so and you've got the BBC influx in Salford. When I used to go to Manchester as a teenager, it was full of Mancunians, now it's gone a bit hooray Henry and prices for everything are going a bit "north of the river"

FormaLurka how much do you think teachers earn? Outside of London, they start on £21.5k. Such a patronising comment.

Strange breed teachers....most of them have never left school. They do get about 14 weeks paid holidays don't they:-) About 5 years ago my youngest daughter was still at home and she wanted to bring her mate on holiday with us. Her mum was a science teacher at the same (state) school. Out of courtesy, I asked the girls mum if it would be Ok to take her daughter with us before we asked her daughter would she like to come. The first thing she said was "I can't afford it, I'm a single parent and I only earn £38k as a teacher. I said I don't want any money, so she came and we all had a great time.......£38 K was more than mine and my wife's salary combined at the time. My point is that most teachers live in their own little bubble and they have never ventured into the real world......

rob I'm not sure on your DDs friends mothers situ to comment on (you don't know if she had big debts struggling to pay off a month from the past of mortgage difficulties or other problems to be able to comment on that) and I'm a bit you call it just a courtesy to ask the parents permission, it's more than that, but my main reason for writing this message is many people ignore the fact teachers ARE NOT PAID for most of the holidays, it's just the wage is spread across the year, we get the bog standard hol allowance and the rest is unpaid but payment of wages is pro rata so people don't realise this. It's quite a generalisation teachers have never ventured into the real world, I'm starting to think I could use the same generalisation for your views of your world from your surroundings.....

But you haven't answered it because it doesn't fit with your argument.
Not all state schools are very different from their neighbouring private schools.

Oh and I'm a teacher who lives a nice affluent lifestyle thats to the fact that I married a lawyer and I'm very lucky with all that. Certainly not affluent on a teacher's salary. It's not minimum wage but its not high compared to my qualifications.

But as for not living in the real world????? You talk about Salford but I grew up in a slum Living hand to mouth. Spent my entire school time on fsm with my shoes hanging off. The schools I have taught in both in inner city Salford and others equally deprived areas are different worlds from my local state school but very similar worlds to the one I grew up in.

Beatback, that little pocket of Cheshire is dripping with affluence. Literally as the people there like to let you know how well off they are. I liked it when we first moved there but it wore me down after a while. They really have no idea of the massive poverty literally a couple of miles up the road in places such as whythenshaw.

Reastie....Highly qualified science teacher and head of department on £38k.......If she can't be a good custodian of her own finances, then perhaps she shouldn't be giving 30 kids the benefit of her knowledge. That's my point, most teachers have never actually left school, in my opinion, it doesn't lend itself to preparing kids for life outside school. I still think that all kids should attend their local state school regardless. At least they'll be more or less on a level playing field.

And Reastie, I've got friends who are teachers and you're doing exactly what they do. They talk to you (and I remind them of this) like they're talking to a kid that's just come down with the last shower of rain.......I know what a salary is, I have one. I know your holidays are included pro rata in your salary - so are mine....I get it ! The thing is, I get 5 weeks Annual leave....you get about 14 weeks......not a bad crack really is it ?

And I don't get the courtesy bit. I'm talking about a sixteen year old kid, not a baby. The courtesy is to ask the parents permission BEFORE my daughter asks her friend in case the parent says no and the mate is then disappointed. Hope that's PC enough, but I did it anyway.

rob the parent is paying for the trip. It's more than a courtesy to ask! You said we are paid 14 weeks holiday, I simply corrected you. We are paid for the job we do not for the hours in a school we spend teaching. FWIW if I worked out my hourly rate for time I spend actually working (not just when I'm in school teaching) it isn't alot more than minimum wage tbh, I frequently spend over double hours from those I'm in school working, it's not as cushy as you'd believe, but I'm sure you'll be keen to point out your teacher friends talk at you to tell you this too whilst speaking in a patronising way because all teachers always speak this way .

Miss, I don't understand........ I paid for the girl to come and I wouldn't have taken anything even if her mother had offered because we invited her.

I know two P.E. teachers who I play sport with and they make it sound like a part time hobby with long holidays....they've both been teachers for over 25 years. I know a couple of female primary school teachers and one female high school teacher and they describe it a bit like you.

I know that every time I get a new apprentice I've got to teach them how to say please and thank you and stop messing about with your iphone and pay attention. They lack discipline. I don't suppose you're allowed to hit them any more are you?.....spare the rod, spoil the child !